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Green and greener
For as long I can remember, New York Sanitation Department barges hauling waste paper away from North River Pier 99 have been painted blue, in a slightly darker shade than the livery of the DonJon Marine tugs which haul them under contract to the recycling mill on the Staten Island shore of the Arthur Kill. But on Friday, DonJon’s Paul Andrew brought a green painted barge up to the pier and, rather than being stamped with DSNY as the blue ones always had been, this barge bore the logo of Pratt Industries, which runs the recycling mill. Will this become the new normal?
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West New York
The Kirby Mount St. Elias/DBL 82 ATB has been a regular on the Hudson River routes this winter. On Friday morning, the unit passed West New York, New Jersey on her way down the North River. The accurately if unimaginatively named town sits between Weehawken and Guttenberg, NJ and lettering at the top of the Palisades cliff identifying this little stretch of the riverbank is visible to the left of the elevated wheelhouse on the tug in the photo.
The sign is no doubt intended to inform viewers on the New York City side of the river, or perhaps travelers on the river itself, what municipality they are looking at, but in truth the lettering is too small to be visible from very far away and if it were not for occasionally catching it in the frame of my zoom lens I would not know it was there.
The entire New York side of the North River is occupied by a single municipality, but along the once-industrial New Jersey shoreline there are eight, stretching from Jersey City to Englewood Cliffs. The New Jersey side of the river never experienced the municipal consolidation which forged greater New York City in the late 19th Century, in fact fragmenting into more independent municipalities during this time.
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Heavy lift
Heavy lift cargo ship Gwen, Antigua-flagged, was heading for sea in the late afternoon haze as temperatures warmed Wednesday afternoon. Gwen had called at Port of Albany and was showing Palm Beach as her next port of call.
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Working visit
Reinauer’s Dylan Cooper/ RTC 108 ATB, a 4,000 HP tug paired with a 108,000 barrel capacity barge, spent Tuesday at anchor on the North River off West New York after arriving after dark Monday evening. At slack tide, a launch called Grace D paid a visit and spent some time alongside. After sundown, Dylan headed back down to the Upper Bay where she remains at anchor off Erie Basin.
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The Feds
Two of New York Harbor’s federal government boats met on the North River Monday, with the Coast Guard cutter Bonito overtaking the Army Corp of Engineers boat Moritz off West New York. Bonito, the current Sandy Hook patrol boat and the only white-hulled cutter based in New York Harbor, was returning to base from a daytrip upriver as far as Irvington. Moritz was returning to the Corp’s Caven Point base in Jersey City after a patrol which took her up the East River as far as the Throgs Neck Bridge and then back around the Battery and up the North River to the GW on the lookout for hazards to navigation.
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Back from Philly
Reinauer’s Josephine/RTC 83 ATB brought a fuel cargo up from the Marcus Hook refinery on the Delaware River (South River to the old Dutch) up to anchor over the weekend on the North River. She pulled up her hook before sunrise Monday and headed for the Kinder Morgan terminal in Carteret.
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Back to the plant
Pearl Coast, Dann Marine’s 5,600 HP nearly 50-year-old tug, was on the North River last Monday with a light cement barge returning to the cement plant in Ravenna, NY for more product after a delivery in Boston. As of Sunday morning, Pearl remains moored at the plant.
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Unfamiliar tug
Dann Marine tug Atlantic Coast spent some time at anchor on the North River this past week with a loaded-looking Vane DS-53 tank barge. I have not seen this tug before, which is rated at 3,000 HP and is approaching 20 years of age. I believe she is normally based further south. We have seen the barge though, heading for a Hudson Valley power plant in February 2025 with the tug Fort Schuyler. Atlantic exited New York Harbor on Wednesday, with or without the barge—I’m not sure. By Saturday morning she had rounded Cape Hatteras and was heading south off the Carolinas.
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Keep the salt coming
Road salt from Egypt continues to move up the North River this week, heading for the Port of Coeymans and then onward to municipal storage facilities to replenish what was expended over the winter.
On Friday morning, the bulk ship Princess Margo came through, catching the morning sun interrupted by the shadows cast by the towers of Riverside Boulevard. Margo had spent some time at anchor in the Upper Bay last weekend, lightering off some of her cargo to barges for transport upriver as captured by the Tugster blog on March 15.
Now, after first heading back to Ambrose anchorage for a bit, she was on her way up to presumably discharge the balance of her cargo with her draft reduced to 30 feet from I believe closer to 36 feet when she was in the Upper Bay. A few days before, Carver Marine’s Helen came up the river with another barge load of salt heading for Coeymans, perhaps some of the cargo that was transferred off Margo.
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The big one
The Christian Reinauer/RTC 145 is about as big an ATB combination as you are ever likely to see on the North River, one of Reinauer’s largest units with a 7,200 HP tug paired with a 477-foot 150,000 barrel barge. We did see Christian making trips upriver back in 2022 but this year we’ve just seen her stopping by to anchor, which was the case last weekend when we saw her leaving anchorage north of the bridge after spending some time there upon returning from a run up to Providence or Boston. As of this Thursday, Christian is heading south, currently off North Carolina and showing an AIS destination of Savannah.
Observations on the Hudson River as it passes through New York City. The section of the Hudson which passes through New York is historically known as the North River, called this by the Dutch to distinguish it from the Delaware River, which they knew as the South River. This stretch of the Hudson is still often referred to as the North River by local mariners today. All photos copyright Daniel Katzive unless otherwise attributed. For more frequent updates, please follow northriverblog on Facebook or Instagram.
North River Notes 