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Heading to work
Metropolitan Marine’s 1,900 HP tug Normandy came up the North River Thursday morning, passing Weehawken en route to the Manhattan Cruise Terminal where she would help bring a bunkering barge alongside the cruise ship Pacific World on the south side of Pier 88.
Vane’s Elk River followed a short time later with the tank barge which was left alongside the ship while Elk River waited at Pier 90 and Normandy returned to the Kills.
Pacific World is on a 107-day round the world cruise, having departed from Yokohama on April 7 and sailed west, calling at Reykjavik before reaching NYC this week. World departed late Thursday night en route to her next port of call in Jamaica and was off the Delaware coast by Friday morning.
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Event parking
Work is underway this week on a new temporary docking structure between unused North River Piers 90 and 92. With the big Sail250 celebration just a few weeks away, the city is working to increase pier space for visiting tall ships and a group of four connected spud barges will provided a home for several vessels during the festivities.
Stasinos tug John Joseph brought the spud barges which will comprise the new dock down from Verplanck on Wednesday afternoon and workers were still assembling them on Thursday.
At least some of the barges appear to have been drawn from the Champlain Hudson Power Express construction fleet; with the CHPE cable now complete and energized, the barges are available for new missions.
Pier 90 was mostly shutdown earlier this year due to structural issues and the city has plans to remove it entirely in the future, but for now it can still accommodate a small vessel on the section closest to the shoreline and one tall ships is set to dock here as well, according to a recent report in the New York Times. Pier 92 has been closed for years and will not be used. -
Made in New York
Dann Marine’s Pearl Coast, 48 years old and 5,600 HP, has been moving cement from the Amrize cement plant near Ravenna NY, to terminals in New England over the past month. On Monday, Pearl came up the North River with a light cement transporter barge, heading back to the plant for more product after offloading in Providence RI. As of Wednesday morning, she remains at the plant.
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Dress rehearsal
A French Air Force A400M Atlas tanker and eight French alpha jet fighters flew down the North River Tuesday morning, with the fighters trailing red, white and blue smoke. The flight originated at Stewart, circled the Statue and headed for Virginia. The planes are part of the Patrouille de France, the official aerobatic demonstration team of the French Air and Space Force and are on a US tour celebrating the 250th anniversary of US independence which will culminate back in NYC on July 4, according to a press release from the USMA.
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Rabbit Rabbit
The venerable Dace Reinauer/ RTC 62 ATB unit came down the North River on the first day of June, returning from a final May delivery up north. A week later on Monday morning Dace is back in New York Harbor on the Kill van Kull having been up and back to Rensselaer and Newburgh in the first week of June already.
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N WYE C
Vane Brothers tug Wye River, 18 years old and 4,200 HP, came up the North River on Wednesday afternoon with a products cargo loaded on a Vane barge heading for the Sunoco terminal in Rensselaer. I have not seen Wye up here since the winter of 2025 and she may have been working out of the Delaware River terminals which is where she came up from earlier in the week. By Saturday morning, Wye is back in New York Harbor at the Vane base in Gowanus Bay/Red Hook.
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Substitute
Wednesday afternoon found a rare sight on the North River: towboat Buchanan12 returning to her Erie Basin base running light without her usual raft of crushed stone hoppers from the Clinton Point quarry near Poughkeepsie. The next morning, Norfolk Tug’s George Holland, who sometimes substitutes for B12, was running with the Buchanan boat’s usual charges, returning empty BMLP hoppers to the quarry. By Friday, both were back to their more usual routines, with Buchanan12 moving hoppers between Clinton Point and the Greenville Flats and George heading north with her single barge to collect stone for delivery elsewhere in the region.
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Fill ‘er up
Chandra B, a small bunkering tanker that services mid-sized boats in New York Harbor, was at Pier 40 on Wednesday morning, refueling the sightseeing cruiser The Manhattan 2.
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She’s a keeper
Coast Guard buoy tender Katherine Walker, the Keeper of New York Harbor, came up the North River on the first day of June, the first time I have seen her this spring. Kate had some buoys on deck and travelled as far north as lighted buoy 168 just a bit south of Albany, stopping at buoys along the way. After spending Tuesday overnight in Poughkeepsie she appeared to be on the way back to the harbor as of Thursday morning.
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Harbor David
An NYPD Harbor Patrol 32-footer, I believe Harbor David, came up the North River in a hurry Monday afternoon from the Harbor David base at the Intrepid. Things get busier for these units as temperatures warm, but the nature of Monday’s call wasn’t clear.
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 