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Simply Marvelous
The bulk ship SSI Marvelous came up the North River Monday morning, the first of two bulkers to pass through within a half hour of each other. Unlike most of the bulk ships we see this time of year which are bringing salt to the Port of Coeymans, Marvelous was carrying cement and heading for the Cementon pier in the Town of Catskill after first calling to partially discharge in Providence.
No cement has been manufactured in Cementon since the early 1980s, but the waterside facilities have been converted into a terminal for imported cement brought over mainly from Turkey. Cement is still manufactured further north in Ravenna and brought to market in New York Harbor and New England via Jones Act-compliant tug/barge combinations, making cement one of the few products that regularly moves both directions on the river.
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Time for some yard work
Deborah Quinn, a 1962-vintage 2,200 HP tug with classic lines, ran up the North River early Monday morning, heading for the shipyard in Kingston NY. Deborah is owned by Breakwater Marine Construction according to the Tugboatinformation website and I believe she has mainly been working on the East River resiliency project on the East Side for the past few years, but this week she was on the other side of town, likely heading in to have some work done at the Feeney shipyard.
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Thundering Typhoons!
Thundering typhoons! The bulk ship Captain Haddock came up the North River Monday, Port of Coeymans bound and partially laden with salt after lightering off some cargo in the Upper Bay to Carver Marine barges last month and then killing some time at Ambrose Anchorage. The Captain is no doubt named for Belgian graphic novelist Herge’s mid-20th century sea-fairing adventurer and sidekick to Tintin.
From the graphic novel Red Sea Sharks by Herge, copyright Casterman 1958 Archibald Haddock was a stalwart righter-of-wrongs and a competent mariner as long as he stayed away from the booze. Even sober, the irascible captain could unleash a stream of child-friendly profanity at the slightest provocation. Glad I got to see the ship.
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Cement season
Cement is moving on the North River this month as construction activity ramps up with the spring thaw. Dann Marine’s Pearl Coast came down from the Amrize cement plant in Ravenna, NY on the first day of April with a loaded cement transporter. Pearl and other Dann tugs make regular runs down the Hudson delivering cement from the plant to terminals around New York Harbor and sometimes up to New England or down the coast. On this trip, Pearl headed for the cement terminal in Bayonne and then continued on to Boston.
The Amrize plant, formerly Lafarge, is one of three manufacturing facilities operating on the Hudson which uses its own docking facility to access the river (a fourth, Domino Sugar in Yonkers, closed at the end of last year), and the only one which sends out its finished product by water (as opposed to bringing in raw material).
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Season of the Brant
The brant are back. Every spring, brant geese spend some time on the North River as they begin their migration back to the Canadian arctic from their winter homes along the Jersey or Long Island shorelines. On Saturday, there were large numbers of these birds, which look like smaller versions of our local Canada geese, hanging out on the North River south of the GW Bridge.
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Unburdened youth
The bulk ship Amis Youth (not Aimless Youth), 650 feet in length and Liberia flagged, came down the North River Friday morning heading for sea. Youth was in ballast and drawing less than 30 feet after discharging a cargo at the Port of Coeymans. Bulk ship traffic on the river has been heavy this spring, in part due to high demand for salt to refill municipal stores up north. Most of the salt heading for Coeymans has been coming from Egypt this year, but Amis Youth came here from Chili, which is another supplier of the mineral.
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On Haverstraw Bay
Dann Ocean’s Captain Dann ran light up Haverstraw Bay on Saturday morning, having come up from the North River heading for the shipyard in Kingston, probably to collect a barge. After a quick turn, the tug came back downriver, left town and headed for Philly, probably to deliver the barge she probably collected. By then end of the week, the Captain is back in New York Harbor on Newark Bay.
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Loaded
The Haggerty Girls/ RTC 107 ATB was anchored in the North River on Saturday with the 107,000 barrel barge looking loaded. We don’t see loaded barges at anchor very often but we do occasionally. The unit has been back and forth between the North River and the Arthur Kill for the rest of the week.
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Pulp fact
The cargo ship Timber Navigator, Dutch-flagged and 387 feet long, was Albany-bound on the North River on the last day of March. Arriving from Sweden, she is likely carrying wood pulp headed for northeast paper mills. By Wednesday morning she was approaching her destination having anchored off Hyde Park overnight.
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In ballast
The Liberian-flagged 650-foot long bulk ship Aquagemini came down the North River heading for sea on Monday morning. The ship was in ballast and drawing less than 25 feet after discharging a cargo from Egypt at the Port of Coeymans, probably salt. By Tuesday morning she is well offshore and heading southeast.
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 