Archive for the ‘Maritime Sunday’ Category
chill current
Maritime Sunday once more gurgles and splashes into port.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Joan Turecamo, IMO number 7902025, is a 392 ton Tug which was built in 1981 at the Matton Shipyard in Cohoes, NY. She’s owned and operated by the Moran Company, and was recently spotted while onboard a Working Harbor Committee “Newark Bay” tour.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
She was plying the poison waters of the Kill Van Kull, another one of the chemically complex industrial waterways that one such as myself calls home. Kill Van Kull has been referred to as “Tugboat Alley” more than once at this, your Newtown Pentacle, for the enormous number of towing and cargo vessels making their way to and from the titan Port Elizabeth Newark Port complex.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Moran tug was headed out to the larger harbor when spotted, and seemed to be under full steam while working against the current. A hearty maritime Sunday shout out is offered to the cast and crew of the tugboat Joan Turecamo.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday- September 28, 2013
Newtown Creek Boat Tour with the Working Harbor Committee- tickets on sale now.
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale soon.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
last ounce
A short Maritime Sunday visit with the Vane Bros.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Vane Brothers’ brand new Tug Magothy recently rolled past me at the exit from Kill Van Kull, while onboard with the Working Harbor Committee. Vane started out as a Ships Chandlery in 1898, down in the port of Baltimore. They’ve become a towing company over the last century, and operate a fleet of tugs and barges in the ports of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk, and Charleston.
from vanebrothers.com
The tug Magothy is the fourteenth in a line of Patapsco-class tugs. She was designed by Frank Basile of Entech & Associates, and is under construction at Thoma-Sea Boat Builders’ West Yard in Houma, Louisiana. The Magothy is 100’ long, with a 34’ beam, and a depth of 15’. Her gross tonnage is 99 tons. She is powered by two CAT3516, 2100 horse-power engines with Kort nozzles.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oyster Creek, as seen on the same Working Harbor Committee Newark Bay tour, steaming along on the Kill Van Kull. Many of my photographer buddies abhor white tugs, decrying their lack of contrast with the sky and water, preferring the pigments and color ways of McAllister, Reinauer, and Moran tugs (all incorporate reds). Me, I like the challenge of getting the exposure right.
from vanebrothers.com
The Oyster Creek is a coastwise 3,000 horsepower towing vessel measuring 90’ long, 32’ wide, with a 13’ hull depth. Powered by two Caterpillar diesel engines, she is dedicated to 30,000-barrel tank barges. Her gross tonnage is 99 tons. The Oyster Creek is named for the Oyster Creek cove and tributary stream in Maryland.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Vane sent the Hunting Creek and Red Hook to compete in the 2013 Great North River Tugboat Race. Here they are just about crossing the finish line. Official results not handy at the time of this writing,
from vanebrothers.com
The Hunting Creek officially joined Vane’s ranks on February 3, 2012. Since then she has been a bunkering workhorse in New York Harbor. The sixth in a series of eight from Chesapeake Shipbuilding in Salisbury, Maryland, she is a 3,000 horsepower vessel, measuring 90′ long, 32′ wide, with a 13′ hull depth. She was designed by Frank Basile of Entech and Associates of Houma, Louisiana, and is named for the Hunting Creek cove and tributary stream in Maryland.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday- September 21, 2013
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills Walking Tour with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Saturday- September 28, 2013
Newtown Creek Boat Tour with the Working Harbor Committee- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
thither shouldst
Maritime Sunday drifts into port again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recently spotted while onboard a Working Harbor Committee trip, the tug Ireland entering the Kill Van Kull on a misty evening.
Ireland has been mentioned before, in this Maritime Sunday post from January of 2013.
That’s all the truth.
from wikipedia
A central proposition of existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which means that the most important consideration for the individual is the fact that he or she is an individual—an independently acting and responsible conscious being (“existence”)—rather than what labels, roles, stereotypes, definitions, or other preconceived categories the individual fits (“essence”). The actual life of the individual is what constitutes what could be called his or her “true essence” instead of there being an arbitrarily attributed essence used by others to define him or her. Thus, human beings, through their own consciousness, create their own values and determine a meaning to their life. Although it was Sartre who explicitly coined the phrase, similar notions can be found in the thought of existentialist philosophers such as Heidegger, and Kierkegaard.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ireland was towing a work barge which was carrying a materials handler as it entered the Kill. Notice the bars sticking up out of the barge, they would be driven down into the soft bottom of the waterway before any work started, and act as stabilizing stilts- or so I’ve been told.
People lie to me all the time, and I pretend that I don’t realize it.
from wikipedia
Deception includes several types of communications or omissions that serve to distort or omit the complete truth. Deception itself is intentionally managing verbal and/or nonverbal messages so that the message receiver will believe in a way that the message sender knows is false. Intent is critical with regard to deception. Intent differentiates between deception and an honest mistake. The Interpersonal Deception Theory explores the interrelation between communicative context and sender and receiver cognitions and behaviors in deceptive exchanges.
The five primary forms of deception are:
- Lies: making up information or giving information that is the opposite or very different from the truth.
- Equivocations: making an indirect, ambiguous, or contradictory statement.
- Concealments: omitting information that is important or relevant to the given context, or engaging in behavior that helps hide relevant information.
- Exaggerations: overstatement or stretching the truth to a degree.
- Understatements: minimization or downplaying aspects of the truth.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ireland was heading toward the New Jersey side of the Kill, where the petrochemical industry looms large. This shoreline infrastructure is an essential component of the mechanism which is New York City. We are, all of us, components of this machine in some way or another.
This, lords and ladies, is no lie. I think.
from wikipedia
Egocentric predicament, a term coined by Ralph Barton Perry in an article (Journal of Philosophy 1910), is the problem of not being able to view reality outside of our own perceptions. All worldly knowledge takes the form of mental representations that our mind examines in different ways. Direct contact with reality cannot be made outside of our own minds; therefore, we cannot be sure reality even exists. This means that we are each limited to our own perceptual world and views.
enlarged expeditions
Today’s post wonders what it is that may eternal lie.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Maritime Sunday is a time for reflection and appreciation of the working harbor of New York and New Jersey and all the ships at sea, but nagging suspicions that there may be something lurking beneath the surface torment.
Down in the weed choked mud, can there be some form of alien consciousness whose revelation would engender the start of a new dark age? In some subaqueous sepulchre, does some phosphorescent madness wait which may not be dead, but actually lies dreaming instead? The question reduces a humble narrator into a horrible jelly of panic and paranoid fanaticism, frozen with hysterical paralysis at the implications of a dire future suggested by the very idea.
Can anyone perceive that which lies beneath the ocean waves and discern all there is, that might be hidden in the icy darkness?
If there is – trust me, the United States Government is on top of it- and they’ve got the gear.
from wikipedia
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island (including the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn) from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland. In reference to its connection to Long Island Sound, it was once also known as the Sound River. The tidal strait usually reverses flow four times a day.
The strait was formed approximately 11,000 years ago at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation. The distinct change in the shape of the strait between the lower and upper portions is evidence of this glacial activity. The upper portion (from Long Island Sound to Hell Gate), running largely perpendicular to the glacial motion, is wide, meandering, and has deep narrow bays on both banks, scoured out by the glacier’s movement. The lower portion (from Hell Gate to New York Bay) runs north-south, parallel to the glacial motion. It is much narrower, with straight banks. The bays that exist (or existed before being filled in by human activity), are largely wide and shallow.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An American Palantír – gaze in wonder upon – the Ship.
It can be said that the ship you see was once a Navy vessel, the USNS Capable. Capable was a Stalwart Class Ocean Surveillance vessel, originally tasked with the collection of acoustic data as part of the anti submarine force. It launched in 1988, had 1,600 HP engines, and was 224 feet long with a 43 foot beam. It left the service in 2004, whereupon it was transferred to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA launched the refitted vessel in 2008, christening it the Okeanos Explorer.
NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer, “America’s Ship for Ocean Exploration,” is the only federally funded U.S. ship assigned to systematically explore our largely unknown ocean for the purpose of discovery and the advancement of knowledge. Telepresence, using real-time broadband satellite communications, connects the ship and its discoveries live with audiences ashore. Visit the NOAA Marine Operations Center Okeanos Explorer page for operations and crew information.
Since the ship was commissioned on August 13, 2008, the Okeanos Explorer has traveled the globe, exploring the Indonesian ‘Coral Triangle Region;’ benthic environments in the Galápagos; the geology, marine life, and hydrothermal systems of the Mid-Cayman Rise within the Caribbean Sea; and deep-sea habitats and marine life in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Mapping activities along the West and Mid-Atlantic Coasts have furthered our knowledge of these previously unexplored areas, setting the stage for future in-depth exploration activities.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Images and video captured by the Okeanos Explorer suggest vast versimilitude to certain blasphemous paintings of dream landscapes, which were last displayed in the salons of Paris shortly before the second World War, which were said to cause viewers to note strange parallelisms and draw mystified conclusions. Perhaps the ship has already visited that nightmare corpse city (spoken of only in hushed whisper by cultists and madmen alike) in the southern Pacific, found at S. Latitude 47°9′, W. Longitude 126°43′, and have decided to keep their findings private due to an abundance of caution and the desire to protect the world from knowledge of the thing. Who can say?
At any rate, a squamously squirming and loathsomely redolent Maritime Sunday greeting is fearfully offered to the crew of the Okeanos Explorer at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
also from oceanexplorer.noaa.gov
From July to August 2013, a team of scientists and technicians both at-sea and on shore will conduct exploratory investigations on the diversity and distribution of deep-sea habitats and marine life along the Northeast U.S. Canyons and at Mytilus Seamount, located within the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone. The 36-day expedition is composed of two cruise ‘legs.’
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, August 10, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, August 17, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
promised haven
Maritime Sunday drifts in today.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Witness the United States Army Corps of Engineers DCV Hayward as it hurtles into the so called Buttermilk Channel section of the East River.
The legend of Buttermilk Channel is stated thusly- in the ancient days of the Dutch decadence, the Brooklyn to Governors Island section of the tidal strait was so shallow at low tide that farmers would drive their cattle across the muddy puddle and set them to grazing on the island. The cattle would be vouchsafed against canids or the attention of thieves by the high tide, allowing the farmers to move on to other more profitable pursuits. Returning to fetch their dairy cows at the next low tide, the farmers would find that their herds had fed on Governors Island plentiful salt grass, and the cows would produce vast amounts of wholesome milk the next morning. This is how this section of the East River came to be called Buttermilk Channel. Or so the legend states.
Balderdash, claims Captain Doswell of the Working Harbor Committee, although your humble narrator argues for the historical record and colorful story. We agree to disagree.
Subsequent dredging, much of it accomplished by the stewards of the Hayward- the USACE- allows a maritime channel of sufficient depth to disallow the transit of cattle to Governors Island from Brooklyn in modern times.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The maintenance of this channel, specifically keeping it free of floating debris which could impede or injure vessels plying it, is the responsibility of skimmer boats like the Hayward. Built in 1974, Haywards’ crane can handle 120 tons, and she is specifically a “drift collection vessel.” Hayward is one of three such vessels the USACE operates in New York Harbor (with the 1948 vintage Driftmaster and the 1980’s Gelberman) which remove just north of 100 tons of debris from the water annually. This debris includes downed trees, trash of all sorts, really anything that might find its way into the water. Sometimes this can involve downed aircraft.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
Glittering Realms– Saturday, August 3rd, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, August 10, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, August 17, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
The Newtown Pentacle 