Archive for the ‘Tugboat’ Category
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
Early preparations for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday necessitated a trip to a certain big box grocer located in Long Island City on Friday. Unfortunately, a slightly strained muscle in my back was pushed all the way from “uncomfortable” to “spasming” by the trip, wherein mass quantities of food stuffs were laboriously carried up the stairs to the walk up apartment quarters shared by “Our Lady of the Pentacle” and myself with our little dog. Accordingly, this post is being offered by a massively distracted narrator. The dog was particularly enthused when she realized that part of the horde of consumer products transported into the apartment included a 15 pound supply of Milkbone brand dog biscuits.
Built in 1973, by McDermott Shipyard of Morgan City, Louisiana (hull #179) as the Amy Moran for the Moran Towing Corporation of Greenwich, Connecticut. The tug is fitted with an elevating wheelhouse. She is a twin screw tug rated at 3,000 horsepower.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a poor showing at maintaining regular updates in the latter half of 2011, resolutions to hold this- your Newtown Pentacle- to a daily schedule were made, and so far in 2012 only one day has come and gone without an update. Luckily, it’s a leap year. That single missing day is actually due to an outage of Internet access rather than my own sloth, so at least I have a good excuse.
from morantug.com
Moran Towing began operations in 1860 when founder Michael Moran opened a towing brokerage, Moran Towing and Transportation Company, in New York Harbor. In 1863, the company was transformed from a brokerage into an owner-operator of tugboats when it purchased a one-half interest in the tugboat Ida Miller for $2,700.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For today’s Maritime Sunday post, the focus is cast upon the Amy Moran, which is part of the enormous fleet of towing vessels employed by the Moran corporation. All of the shots in this post were captured along the Kill Van Kull, with the final one depicting her undergoing maintenance at a floating drydock located along the tidal strait which divides and defines the coastlines of New Jersey and Staten Island.
Ow. Despite my aching back, a humble narrator nevertheless sends a hearty Maritime Sunday shout out to the Amy Moran and her crews.
from wikipedia
A floating drydock is a type of pontoon for dry docking ships, possessing floodable buoyancy chambers and a “U”-shaped cross-section. The walls are used to give the drydock stability when the floor or deck is below the surface of the water. When valves are opened, the chambers fill with water, causing the drydock to float lower in the water. The deck becomes submerged and this allows a ship to be moved into position inside. When the water is pumped out of the chambers, the drydock rises and the ship is lifted out of the water on the rising deck, allowing work to proceed on the ship’s hull.
mournful mist
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few days before the storm, your humble narrator found himself bobbing around on the Newtown Creek onboard the Riverkeeper boat. While Captain John Lipscomb and his crew performed their function and fulfilled their patrol mission objectives, I was casting my lens around the waterway when I spotted this tug and barge. A fitting subject for another Maritime Sunday at this, your Newtown Pentacle, thought I.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The barge which the tug is handling is a “clean oil barge” which contains some 10,000 gallons of refined fuel. The tug is the Hubert Bays, an independent tug operated by Marine Environmental Transportation LLC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Likely, the tug was headed for the Bayside depot on English Kills, which is the facility landlubbers will recognize as located on Metropolitan Avenue nearby its intersection with Grand Street at the crux or angle between Williamsburg and Bushwick.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oddly, there wasn’t too much to be found detailing the specifics about Hubert Bays, which is kind of anomalous for a vessel operating in NY Harbor. It seems to be flagged in Austria, which is also kind of odd.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m sure that the operators or crew of the tug will find this post when they google themselves. To these parties, I would ask, please fill us in on yourselves. That’s one fine looking tug and barge combination you’ve got, and a certain humble narrator hates mysteries.
quieter bazaars
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mer de Beaufort, or the Beaufort Sea, is a body of water found north of Alaska and Canada which is frozen over most of the year. Beneath it are significant reserves of natural gas and petroleum, which are exploited by and fought over by both Canadian and United States interests. Due to its severe weather and ice bound condition, little to no commercial fishing happens, and it is home to a large colony of Beluga Whales and other cetacean megafauna. Most of the folks who live there are aboriginal- ethnic Inuvialuit Inuits and Native Americans.
It’s also a tugboat.
Built in 1971, by Main Iron Works of Houma, Louisiana (hull #258) as the Corsair for Interstate Oil Transportation of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
At the time Interstate Oil Transportation operated two fleets. Their Northeast Fleet or “Green Fleet” operated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And their Southern Fleet or “White fleet” which operated out of Tampa, Florida.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recently, the Kirby Corporation bought a large outfit operating in NY Harbor called K-Sea. Beaufort Sea was a K-Sea tug, now it’s one of the hundreds owned and operated by the Texas based Kirby. The acquisition, apparently, was driven by a desire to strengthen their coastal towing capabilities in the field of refined petroleum and other barge shipped volatile liquids. An extensive corporate history, which reads like something out of an Ayn Rand book, can be perused here.
from kirbycorp.com
The New York Division operates tank barges ranging in capacity from 1,800 barrels to 81,000 barrels, and tugboats from 400 to 3,400 horsepower. This division services a wide variety of customers in both the refined and residual petroleum trades. Many of the barges in the New York fleet are engaged in the delivery of bunker fuel to ships. The NY Division vessels also transport gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, ethanol and other refined products for local and regional customers. In the residual fuel sector, power generating customers rely on New York division vessels for floating storage and transportation of heavy fuel oil to local power plants.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The actual Beaufort Sea- as in the section of the Arctic Ocean which is found between Point Barrow, Prince Peters Island, Banks Island, and the northern coast of Alaska and Canada’s Northwest Territories- seems like a fascinating place whose native peoples live a kind of life one can scarcely imagine as your humble narrator lives in a place called Queens. Hearty, a maritime Sunday shout out goes to both the native people of some far away coast and to the crew of the Beaufort Sea Tug.
from workboat.com
Kirby Corp. is buying K-Sea Transportation Partners in a deal that expands the giant tank-barge operator’s business into the coastwise petroleum transport trade.
The Houston company’s latest and largest acquisition this year is valued at $600 million — $335 million for K-Sea’s equity and $265 million in assumed debt — and is expected to close by July.
The two companies share oil company and refinery customers, so the transaction announced Sunday combines complementary rather than competing businesses. Kirby operates 825 inland tank barges and 222 towboats, as well as four offshore dry-cargo barges and four tugs. K-Sea has 58 coastal tank barges and 63 tugs that operate along the U.S. coasts as well as Alaska and Hawaii.
Also- Upcoming Newtown Creek tours and events:
for more information on the October 27th Newtown Creek Boat Tour, click here
for more information on the November 9th Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show, click here
for an expanded description of the November 11th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
raised place
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Marie J. Turecamo, a Moran tug, getting all iconic on the East River. This tug has been discussed in earlier posts at this, your Newtown Pentacle, specifically the posting “Circumnavigation 1” from which the following is quoted:
…along came the Marie J. Turecamo tugboat- a 2,250 HP twin screw tug operated by Moran Towing. It was originally built as the Traveller in 1968, by Tangier Marine Transport which operated out of the Main Iron Works facility in Houma, LA.
from morantug.com
Moran is a leading provider of marine towing and transportation services, a 150-year-old corporation that was founded as a small towing company in New York Harbor and grew to preeminence in the industry. The cornerstone of our success has been a long-standing reputation for safe, efficient service, achieved through a combination of first-rate people and outstanding vessels and equipment.
Over the course of its history Moran has steadily expanded and diversified, and today offers a versatile range of services stemming from its core capabilities in ship docking, contract towing, LNG activities and marine transportation. Our tug fleet serves the most ports of any operator in the eastern United States, and services LNG terminals along the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts and the West Coast of Mexico. The Moran barge fleet serves the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, the Great Lakes, the inland waters of the U.S. eastern seaboard, and the Gulf of Mexico. We also provide worldwide marine transportation services, including operations in the Caribbean and periodic voyages to South America and overseas waters.
Another appearance of the tug, wherein it played a similar iconic role and chewed a different bit of harbor scenery was in the posting “curious customs“.
Also- Upcoming tours…
for an expanded description of the October 20th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
for more information on the October 27th Newtown Creek Boat Tour, click here
for more information on the November 9th Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show, click here
for an expanded description of the November 11th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
sensitive shadow
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Almost immediately following the appearance of the MV Newtown Creek sludge boat described yesterday, the Sea Wolf tug appeared at Hellsgate, making it ineffably clear that there is no place for me to escape from Newtown Creek and its world. Sea Wolf is a regular sight on the Creek, and the barge it was handling no doubt came from the recycling facilities of SimsMetal also found on the troubled waterway which defines the currently undefeated border of Brooklyn and Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Although my life seems to be some sort of permanent vacation, albeit one lived on an art students budget, it has been too long a time since one has left New York City and viewed something unspoiled- or just different. Part of this is due to work, and an inability to get away for any protracted length of time, but there is something else at work in my mind. One might actually have grown afraid to leave the megalopolis.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Like any prisoner, your humble narrator has become institutionalized, and cowers before the unknown world beyond the palisade walls of the Hudson or the crashing waves of Jamaica Bay. Rationalizations abound… there are a few places I’d like to visit- mainly in Europe (financially and culturally impossible), a few in Asia (similarly unattainable), and many in North America. Traditional vacation destinations don’t work for me, as personal descriptions of hell involve sitting in a chair on a beach and doing absolutely nothing while staring at empty horizons.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The manner in which my mind works, an admittedly byzantine and muddled process, breaks words down to find their true meanings. Recreation is “re-creation” and one has no desire to be recreated in any manner. Vacation is “vacant”. There is no break, no moment of rest for one such as myself. Enough of this idle, sitting in Astoria Park and watching the ships slide by. Clearly it is time to go back to my world of pain and misery along the Newtown Creek- where I belong.
Also- Upcoming tours…
for an expanded description of the October 13th Kill Van Kull tour, please click here
for an expanded description of the October 20th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
The Newtown Pentacle 