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Aids to navigation
Happy Lunar New Year from NOT the North River. Driving across country this week, I did not expect to encounter Coast Guard vessels, but in Little Rock on Tuesday I found the cutter Muskingum, a 75-foot buoy tender comprised of a towboat paired with a crane barge equipped with a spud in the bow. The Muskingum is responsible for 1,000 aids to navigation along the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River System stretching from Tulsa to the Mississippi River.
Tuesday marked the Lunar New Year, and coincidentally a year ago on Lunar New Year (January 29 2025) I photographed our own local buoy tender Katherine Walker on the North River. This year, Katherine is working out on Long Island Sound near New Haven, in very different conditions from 60-degree warmth in Arkansas.
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Winter resident
A red breasted merganser is among the birds wintering on the North River, seen by the A Dock of the 79th Street Boat Basin on Valentines Day Saturday. In spring he will head back to northern lakes and rivers, perhaps in Canada, for breeding.
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Day tripper
Vane Brothers 4,200 HP tug Choptank was Newburgh bound on the North River Saturday morning with a New York Harbor oil products cargo loaded on the Double Skin 54 barge. Ice has mostly cleared from this section of the Hudson, but more could be on the way as floes break up to the north. Choptank made a quick turn and was back in New York Harbor by midday Sunday, anchoring in the Bay Ridge Flats where she remains as the sun rises Monday.
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Back to work!
Thomas Dann and the deck barge CBC Savannah came down the North River on a slow bell Saturday, running on their regular route ferrying offshore wind components for the Sunrise Wind project assembled at the Port of Coeymans to their staging area in Rhode Island. Work on the project has resumed after a February 2 Federal court ruling stayed the administration’s attempt to shut it down. By Sunday morning Thomas and the tow had arrived at their destination, the Port of Providence.
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Returning to the front
Coast Guard icebreaker Penobscot Bay was on the North River heading back to the front Saturday morning, returning to icebreaking duties up north after a few days back at base in Bayonne. It has been a busy winter for this cutter, along with the other Bayonne-based 140-foot Sturgeon Bay and the smaller 65-footer Hawser. A third Bay class cutter, the Thunder Bay has also been brought in this winter to keep the Hudson navigable.
As of Saturday morning, Thunder Bay is working the northern reaches of the river between Poughkeepsie and Hudson, while Sturgeon Bay has been between Newburgh and Hyde Park. Hawser has been working locally in New York Harbor and on Saturday morning she is in Sandy Hook Bay off Atlantic Highlands. -
Heavy in the stern
In early February, the B. Franklin Reinauer/RTC 81 ATB, a 347-foot 86,000 barrel barge paired with a 4,000 HP tug, came down the North River returning to the harbor from delivering a products cargo in Newburgh. The barge seemed unusually ballasted down in the stern, perhaps to improve performance in the ice, though that could be wrong and readers please feel free to correct me in the comments as always if it is.
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Flock of eagles
A group of six bald eagles gathered on a North River ice floe off 72nd Street Thursday morning to discuss important matters. Eagles like to follow the ice so we do tend to see them in the lower reaches of the estuary during the winter, but I’ve never seen a group of six together like this before.
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Under the moonlight
Sunrise on February 3 found a Vane Brothers tug and tank barge northbound in the ice on the North River with a fuel cargo under a nearly full moon.
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After delivery
Vane tug Cape Fear ran light down the North River on Saturday, returning to the harbor from the fuel dock at the Bowline power plant in West Haverstraw. I did not see her on the way up so I don’t know for sure, but most likely she delivered a fuel barge up there. We are seeing tank barges arriving at duel-fuel plants around the region over the past two weeks as very tight natural gas supplies and high demand for electricity amid persistent cold temperatures prompt power generators to switch to their backup oil fuel. This is one way in which the marine highway helps support resilience of our region’s infrastructure.
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The last factory
Beltango, a 650-foot Panama-flagged bulk ship, arrived on the North River on Wednesday with a cargo of gypsum from Garrucha, Spain headed for the wallboard plant in Buchanan, NY. Also visible in the first photo is DonJon Marine’s J. Arnold Witte with a DSNY waste paper scow and Stasinos Marine’s Joanne Marie, currently providing ice escort services for NY Waterways ferries traversing the river.
The wallboard plant in Buchanan has operated since the 1960s and receives monthly deliveries of Spanish gypsum, the primary ingredient in their product. With the closure of the Domino Sugar refinery in Yonkers at year-end, CertainTeed gypsum is now the only manufacturer on the lower Hudson River receiving direct maritime deliveries by ship.
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 