Archive for the ‘Bouchard’ Category
fresh surprise
Megalopolis harbor, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last Saturday, a welcome return to the bosom of the Working Harbor Committee was enjoyed. WHC’s programming this year has occurred on Saturdays, when I’ve largely been busy with my own Newtown Creek and Kill Van Kull tours, and accordingly I’ve missed most of the 2014 schedule. Luckily, I got onboard the Port Elizabeth Newark Bay trip which occurred onboard a Circle Line vessel. Even luckier, I wasn’t asked to speak on the mike, so I stuck my headphones in and turned up the heavy metal and started shooting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The headphones weren’t deployed because I didn’t want to pay attention to the three speakers onboard – Ed Kelly, Gordon Cooper, and Capt. Maggie Flanagan – I did, but one needed to tune out distraction. Look up, down, all around… shoot everything… record, reveal, recall. This is something truly enjoyed by one such as myself, and I wasn’t seeking companionship on this trip – which is something I enjoy less and less these days.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a couple of WHC trips still on the schedule for this year – a circumnavigation of Staten Island and an exploration of Gowanus Bay, I believe. Tomorrow, I’ll have some shots from last Sunday’s WHC event – the Great North River Tugboat Race and Competition – for you.
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Walking Tour this weekend-
Saturday, September 6th, The Insalubrious Valley of the the Newtown Creek
Walking Tour with Atlas Obscura, click here for tickets and more info.
size and cunning
Today’s Maritime Sunday visits the family Bouchard.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Evening Star emerging from the mists of the Kill Van Kull, as recently observed. Brand new and shiny, the tug was built in 2012 and sports a 4000 HP power plant.
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silent tongue
Maritime Sunday floats in with today’s tide.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Evening Mist tug, owned by the redoubtable Bouchard company, motoring its way down the East River and past the iconic and abandoned Domino Sugar Plant. Just a short one today, carrying a heartfelt shout out to the cast and crew of the Evening Mist.
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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.
lifelong seclusion
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
Welcome, once again to Maritime Sunday at this, your Newtown Pentacle. With the return of agreeable weather, a humble narrator has been making up for lost time, and found himself on… Staten Island… last week. The vessel you see is a Bouchard tug, called Evening Tide.
Evening Tide was built in Louisiana, in 1970, and was originally called the “Captain George Edwards.” She measures 127′ x 31′ x 15′ and Evening tide is a powered by a 3,900 HP engine. Recently spotted transiting away the Kill Van Kull towing a fuel barge, the otherwise wholesome seeming Tug was involved in an accident just ten years ago.
from marinelog.com
The oil spill occurred during the afternoon of April 27, 2003, a bright and clear day. A Bouchard owned and operated tugboat, named the Evening Tide, was traveling en route from Philadelphia to Sandwich, Massachusetts. The Evening Tide was towing an unpowered barge loaded with over four million gallons of No. 6 oil, a thick, viscous and adhesive petroleum. All navigational, communications, and steering systems aboard the Evening Tide were in good working order. Navigational charts identifying all hazards in the area, which are published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, were on-board the Evening Tide in paper and electronic form.
While traveling northwards, the Evening Tide veered off course as it neared the first green buoy marking the beginning of Buzzards Bay channel. The Evening Tide and the barge traveled to the west of the first green buoy, the Information alleges, striking a series of rocks. The impact from the collision ripped a twelve foot hole in the bottom of the barge, rupturing one of the barge’s ten separate tanks containing oil.
Also- TOURS:
Glittering Realms– April 20, 2013 Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– May 4, 2013 Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Hidden Harbor: Newtown Creek tour with Mitch Waxman presented by the Working Harbor Committee, departs Pier 17 in Manhattan May 26,2013 at ten a.m. Limited seating available, order advance tickets now. Group rates available.
tangible things
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hanging around the East River side of Lower Manhattan recently, your humble narrator was elated to see the Bouchard Tug “Ellen S. Bouchard” transiting past Governors Island. Such prurient thrills are all that I’m still capable of getting excited about these days, so I whipped out the camera and started shooting.
Built in 1982, by Halter Marine of New Orleans, Louisiana (hull #1036) as the Ellen S. Bouchard for Bouchard Transportation of Melville, New York.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s a fuel barge that the tug is managing, and odds would be good that it’s journey began on either the Kill Van Kull or the Port of Newark. It would be foolish to guess where it was headed, except to say that it will drop its cargo off at a distribution center for eventual disposition to end customers via tanker trucks.
From his first voyage at eleven years of age as a cabin boy on a sailing ship bound for China, Captain Bouchard knew that shipping would be his life. By 1915, he was the youngest tugboat captain in the Port of New York.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The barge would be carrying something close to the equivalent capacity of fifty standard sized oil trucks, and was accordingly making its way through the narrow East River in a slow and deliberate fashion. Such caution is necessary, as an accidental allision or collision would spell disaster for both natural and unnatural features alike.
from wikipedia
Bouchard Transportation Co., Inc, based in Melville, New York, and founded in 1918, is primarily a family and employee-owned company that provides transportation and logistics services in U.S..
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s something about the sight of Tug passing under the Brooklyn Bridge that causes one to want to buy a slice of pizza or order a bagel with cream cheese and lox and complain about the Mayor or the Yankees. It’s just so “New York”.
from wikipedia
The tugboat is one symbol of New York. Along with its more famous icons of Lady Liberty, the Empire State Building, and the Brooklyn Bridge, the sturdy little tugs, once all steam powered, working quietly in the harbor became a sight in the city.
The first hull was the paddler tug Rufus W. King of 1828.
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