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Pushing paper
The city sanitation department has been prioritizing snow removal and garbage collection but on Thursday DSNY was catching up on recycling, with a line of trucks waiting to discharge paper at the Pier 99 transfer station. Workers winched a loaded scow out of the shed, covering the bags of waste paper with netting as the barge emerged. Don Jon Marine’s low-slung J. Arnold Witte made up to the barge and headed for the recycling mill on the Arthur Kill on Staten Island. All paper collected for recycling in Manhattan passes through this transfer station heading for the Staten Island plant where it is transformed into cardboard boxes and other products.
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Help from out of town
Coast Guard cutter Sycamore, a seagoing buoy tender based in Newport, RI, arrived on the North River on Thursday from her homeport to assist with icebreaking operations up north and perhaps with repositioning of buoys displaced by ice. Sycamore, was last here in 2024, but we saw the similar vessel Oak here last winter. Sycamore and Oak look similar to our local Bayonne-based coastal buoy tender Katherine Walker but are more than twice as heavy and 50 feet longer.
View from the bridge of USCG Cutter Sycamore arriving on the North River. SOURCE: USCG Cutter Sycamore Facebook feed After spending Thursday night anchored off Yonkers, Sycamore travelled upriver as far as Kingston before turning back to spend Friday night at Poughkeepsie. As of Saturday morning, she is on her way back downriver towards West Point. Meanwhile, after a busy first few weeks of January, Katherine Walker appears to off line for past two weeks. The 140-foot icebreaker Penobscot Bay is working south of Albany, while the 65-footer Hawser remains busy in NY Harbor.
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Teamwork at the fuel dock
Swapping tank barges at Con Ed’s Pier 98 fuel dock brought four tugs with four different liveries to the North River’s small stretch of working waterfront on Thursday. Vane’s Elk River and Dann Ocean’s Captain Dann stemmed mid-channel with the GCS 230 barge while Liz Vinik cleared out ice from the Pier 98 slip. Centerline’s Andrea’ arrived and pulled the Centerline barge that had been at the pier. Once they were clear, Elk River and the Captain maneuvered the GCS 230 barge, built in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and a usual resident at the pier, back into place.
With natural gas demand having spiked in January due to the extreme cold in the region, the 59th Street Steam plant is probably relying more on oil, one more way in which the harsh winter can impact maritime activity on the North River.
Liz Vinik cleared ice from the slip 
While Elk River and Captain Dann stemmed in the channel nearby 
Centerline’s Andrea’ arrived… 
And made up the Centerline barge at the pier 
Once Andrea’ and her barge were clear, Elk River and Captain Dann move in with the GCS 230 barge 
©2024 Daniel Katzive Uncategorized -
Rock Paper Scissors Ice
The Dutch flag cargo ship Trent Navigator came up the North River Tuesday, Albany-bound and arriving from Sweden with what is very likely a cargo of wood pulp destined for paper mills up north. Trent Navigator carries a Swedish-Finnish 1A ice class rating, designed for year-round operation in the Baltic Sea, and, with the Coast Guard also working to keep the channel navigable, she made it up to Albany in less than 24 hours.
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Hazard to navigation
Army Corps of Engineers vessel Hayward collected a hazard to navigation from the icy North River on Monday, perhaps a piece of dock which broke up in the ice further north. For historical reasons which date back to the 19th Century, while the Coast Guard is responsible for keeping navigable waterways clear of ice, removing other obstructions falls to the civilian employees of the Army Engineers.
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Keeping the steam up
The Liz Vinik, a 3,000 HP Vinik Marine tug built in 1962 for Esso, was brought in to break up the ice around Con Ed’s North River Pier 98 fuel dock on Monday. Deckhands tied the tug’s bow up to the pier and the tug pivoted back and forth, churning up the ice with her twin screws until the back half of the space between Pier 97 and 98 was clear of ice. Liz had visited the Ravenswood power plant on the East River earlier in the day, probably for the same purpose, and after attending to Pier 98 she headed for Atlantic Highlands in Sandy Hook Bay.
Pier 98, in addition to hosting a heat exchange mechanism for cooling a nearby substation, is used by Con Ed to moor barges holding backup fuel oil for the 59th Street Steam Plant, which mostly burns natural gas but can also use number 4 oil. The GCS 230 barge which is usually moored there has been replaced by Centerline’s HMS 2605 barge at some point this winter, and the plant might be burning some oil during this period of high natural gas demand.
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Breaking ice on the North River
The Coast Guard cutter Hawser was breaking ice between North River Pier 99 and Pier i early Monday morning as temperatures hovered around 11 farenheit. This section of the estuary generally remains navigable without human intervention, with the steady barge traffic and ebb and flow of the tide sufficient to keep the channel clear, but this is an exceptional winter. The 65-foot small harbor tug is the only Coast Guard icebreaker working New York Harbor this morning I believe, with both of the local 140-footers busy up north (Penobscot Bay is working north from Poughkeepsie and Sturgeon Bay is off Newburgh) and the other 65-footers Wire and Line and the buoy keeper Katherine Walker not showing up on AIS. After making a loop as far north as West 72nd Street, Hawser spent some time around the Manhattan Cruise Terminal where Norwegian Breakaway arrived this morning and then headed for the Upper Bay.
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Interstate commerce
Returning to New York City from warmer climes finds the harbor beset by the heaviest icing conditions seen in decades and new ways of operating on the North River already becoming routine. NY Waterway has contracted with Stasinos Marine to help keep their trans-Hudson routes operating and Sunday morning finds the 71-year-old tug Joanne Marie, who is normally based in Fall River, Mass, escorting the ferry Garden Sate between Pier 79 and Port Imperial. Built in 1954 for the U.S. Army, Joanne Marie was acquired by Stasinos in 2022 and is I believe now the oldest tug doing regular commercial work in New York Harbor. Long may you run!
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Big Barney Stops By
Moran’s Barney Turecamo/Georgia ATB, a 5,100 HP tug paired with a 425-foot 118,000 barrel barge, is not often on the North River, but the unit paid a short visit on Thursday, traveling up river as far as 72nd Street before making a tight turn and heading back to the harbor. As of Saturday morning she is at a pier in Bayonne’s IMTT terminal.
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One foot out the door
A crewman had one foot out the door as a Coast Guard MH-65 helicopter flew up the North River about 200 feet over the water. The helo was flying up from its Atlantic City base, turned right over Spuyten Duyvil and flew back down to AC passing over Manhattan. They made a loop around the Statue on the way up and back. The 247 mile round trip was accomplished in a little over 2 hours and used a bit more than half of the 65’s listed range. The short-range MH-65s in Atlantic City are the closest Coast Guard aviation assets to New York Harbor, though the medium range MH-60s based in Cape Cod are also not far.
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 