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Back in service
The DEP sludge tanker Hunts Point was heading for the North River water treatment plant on Wednesday morning, the first time I have seen her since her return to service in October. The tanker was badly damaged in an explosion while loading sludge at the North River plant in May 2025. The NTSB determined that the explosion, which took the life of the vessel’s long-serving chief engineer, was caused by use of a welding torch to remove a sheared off bolt above an open tank containing methane gas.
The tanker required extensive repairs and spent more than a year at Caddells Shipyard on Staten Island. With the return to service of Hunts Point, three of the DEP’s five tankers are now operating, with Rockaway, a sister ship to the Hunts Point, in the shipyard for the past two months and the older tanker North River out of service for over a year and possibly not returning. The DEP has been using its reserve barge Udalls Creek and private sludge barges to service the North River plant periodically over the past year.For more information, see my article in gCaptain from this summer: https://gcaptain.com/ntsb-blames-unapproved-hot-work-for-deadly-nyc-sludge-tanker-explosion/
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The Norse Succession goes north
On Monday I shared photos taken the prior day of Carver barges taking on road salt being lightered off the bulk ship Norse Succession anchored in the Upper Bay. Later Monday, the bulker came up the North River heading for the Port of Coeymans. Her draft was reported as just under 30 feet, allowing her to safely navigate the Hudson River marine highway and about 14 feet less than it had been when she first arrived in New York Harbor before offloading some of her cargo. Coming soon to an icy highway near you.
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Lightering operation
Saturday afternoon found Carver Marine Towing tugs with hopper barges on the Upper Bay north of the Verrazano. They were alongside the bulk ship Norse Succession, which sounds like the name of an historical novel or maybe a Scandinavian TV series. The ship’s cranes were offloading (lightering) salt brought out from Egypt. The ship’s draft was reported at 44 feet, which would be deep to navigate north up the Hudson, but once draft has been reduced below 30 feet we may see her come up the North River heading for the Port of Coeymans or Port of Albany to offload the rest of the cargo. In the meantime, the salt cargo on barges can be delivered directly, which we often see heading north.
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Treasure returned
Dann Marine’s Treasure Coast brought a light cement barge on the hip up the North River on Friday, heading for the Ravenna Amrize plant to load product for delivery downstate or along the northeast Atlantic Coast. TC was a regular on the Hudson River route for years, but it has been a while since I have seen her as I believe she has primarily servicing Amrize’s Baltimore cement plant and delivering that product to northeast terminals.
The Baltimore plant produces slag cement as I understand it, unlike the plant in Ravenna which produces Portland cement made from the limestone quarries up there. Treasure Coast also spent some time on the Great Lakes in 2025, filling in for a local cement carrier that was out of service.
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Gypsum day
A pair of Moran tugs, the Margaret Moran and the Laura K Moran, travelled up the North River on Friday to help assist a bulk ship loaded with Spanish gypsum docking at the drywall factory in Buchanan, NY. Margaret, nearly 50 years old and a dean of Moran’s New York Harbor tug fleet, came first, followed by the more modern Laura K.
Laura was taking advantage of the longer-than-usual haul up north to test her fire monitor, running water over the starboard quarter; we saw her doing similar on the way back from Buchanan back in May. Both tugs have their iconic M tinted pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, as noted by @eastriverkeeper yesterday.
The bulker Armonia came through about an hour after the tugs, about 650 feet long and drawing 31 feet partially laden.
A wallboard plant in Buchanan has been operating since the 1960s, though the import of gypsum from Spain is a more recent innovation as in historic older times synthetic gypsum derived from residuals of coal-fired power plants and brought in by barge was used. With the closure of the sugar plant in Yonkers last year, the drywall plant is the only manufacturer utilizing the marine highway left in Westchester.
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Less green
Fall colors have finally reached as far south as the North River. On Thursday morning, Marilyn George, Poling & Cutler’s 4,200 HP tug, passed under the GW Bridge with the Edwin A. Poling barge, one of two 30,000 barrel barges in P&C’s five barge fleet. Edwin was carrying a New York Harbor products cargo between the Buckeye’s Port Reading and Rensselaer terminals. The tow arrived in Rensselaer just a little after midnight.
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Winter supply chain
The winter logistics supply chain is a key theme on the North River this week. Early in the week we saw heating oil and power plant back-up fuel heading north, and on Tuesday afternoon Carver Marine’s Helen had hoppers loaded with road salt. The cargo was likely lightered off a bulk ship in from Egypt anchored in the Upper Bay and the bulker, with AIS reported draft reduced by nearly 10 feet from where it was when she arrived in NY Harbor, would later follow to deliver the rest of the cargo in Albany.
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Back-up fuel
Centerline Logistics tug Hawsepiper had the TB-601H tank barge loaded and heading north on the North River early Tuesday. Along for the ride and barely visible in the photos was Marine Highway’s tug Maddie K, lashed up on the port side. The tow was heading for the Bowline power plant in Haverstraw where Maddie assisted with docking the barge at the fuel dock and they likely filled up the plant’s reserve oil supply tanks.
Bowline, like most conventional power plants in New York State, mainly runs on pipeline natural gas, but in periods of tight gas supply such as we saw this past February, they can switch over to fuel oil. I would not be surprised if plants were being more prudent about laying in reserves this winter given disruptions to global energy markets and the need to scramble for oil in icy conditions last winter.After spending all day at the plant, the two tugs and the barge departed in the early hours of Wednesday, returning to the North River before sunrise where Hawsepiper anchored with the barge and remains Wednesday morning while Maddie headed for Bayonne.
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Peeks and Pokes
Dann Marine’s Gulf Coast came down the North River early Tuesday with the light 40,000 barrel Vane Double Skin 43 barge, returning from a delivery of probably heating oil to the small products terminal in New Hamburg, just south of Poughkeepsie (actually in the Town of Poughkeepsie).
We see Gulf and DS 43 periodically servicing the smaller and shallower draft terminals on the east side of the river in Peekskill and New Hamburg/Poughkeepsie (Peeks and Pokes?) periodically during the winter and fall.
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Smaller business
Ankora Fuels 1,000 HP tug Stephen B came up the North River on Friday with the tank barge John Blanche loaded and heading for the Sunoco terminal in Rensselaer. The company mainly focuses on bunkering I believe but we do occasionally see these vessels delivering to terminals up north.
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.
