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Moving iron
The 1400 HP Catherine C Miller of the Miller’s Launch marine services company was maneuvering barges at the Gateway Tunnel cofferdam work site off Pier 66 last Tuesday. If you spend enough time near this spot you will see tugs from pretty much every locally active towing company other than the petroleum product haulers rotating through working here. A crew member on the Catherine was doing some barbell work on the back deck during his off time.
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Keeping busy
The 4,200 HP Pinuccia, one of two tugs operated by Boston Marine Transport, came up the North River early Wednesday with an oil products cargo loaded on the company’s New York 30 barge heading for Newburgh. After returning to the harbor the next day, the unit loaded a new cargo and headed up to New Haven. By Sunday evening, Pinuccia is back in New York Harbor, outbound on the Kill van Kull after calling at a terminal in Port Reading overnight.
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Summer jobs
Coast Guard ice breaking tug Sturgeon Bay came up the North River from her Bayonne base on Thursday, the first time I have seen either her or her sister Penobscot Bay since ice season ended in March. The 140-foot cutter traveled past the GW Bridge and spent some time off Riverdale before returning home where she remains tucked in as of Saturday morning. These vessels work on other Coast Guard missions during the warmer months.
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Hello again, Number 5
Poling & Cutler’s Marilyn George is paired with the blue-trimmed borrowed barge Number 5 again this week, a combination we last saw in October of last year suggesting one of the other three barges P&C uses for its Hudson River runs might be out of service. Marilyn and Number 5 were Albany-bound on the North River with a New York Harbor products cargo at sunset on Tuesday, returning with the barge light on Thursday evening. By Friday evening, Marilyn was out on the Sound just past New Haven after calling at the Bayonne IMTT with a new cargo presumably loaded there.
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Quick round trip
Kirby’s Mount St. Elias / DBL 82 has been a regular on Hudson River routes over the past year. On Tuesday evening just before sunset, the unit came up the North River passing Jersey City and Hoboken with a NY Harbor products cargo en route to the Global Terminal south of Newburgh, NY. By sunrise Thursday morning, she is back in New York Harbor having anchored on the Bay Ridge Flats in the early hours awaiting her next assignment.
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Non-petroleum product
The Mandal, a 35,000 deadweight ton Marshall Islands flagged tanker, was northbound on the North River on Memorial Day Monday, arriving from Emden, Germany and bound for the Innovative Surface Solutions plant in Glenmont, NY just south of Albany. The destination means the cargo is very likely to have been magnesium chloride, the principal ingredient in the de-icing solution manufactured by the company there on the site of a former Texaco fuel terminal.
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Moving material
Carver Marine’s Mister Jim was Coeymans-bound on the North River on Sunday with the CMT Y NOT 7 deck barge loaded with stone material handling equipment. Jim reached the upstate port the next day and by Tuesday morning is back at the Carver base on the Kill van Kull again.
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Patrol boats patrol
The Sandy Hook patrol boat, 87-foot Coast Guard Cutter Bonito, was cruising New York’s waterways over a rainy Memorial Day weekend. On Saturday, she traveled up the East River as far as Hunts Point before coming back and cruising up the North River as far as the Upper West Side. Dawn on Memorial Day finds Bonito tucked in at her base at Fort Hancock on Sandy Hook after spending Sunday close to home.
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Navigating back
The weekend brought steady drenching rain and two days of small craft warning to New York Harbor. Balico Marine Services’ 1,200 HP tug brought the company’s barge Balico 100 down the North River on Sunday, returning to base after bringing a New York Harbor products cargo up to a terminal in Rensselaer.
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Fly over
Friday’s commissioning ceremony for the new Coast Guard Fast Response Cutter Vincent Danz at Pier 86 brought a helicopter flyover to the North River. Choppers from the NYPD and New York and New Jersey State Police flew over in formation followed by a pair of Coast Guard MH-65 Dolphins flying up from their base near Atlantic City. The Danz remains at Pier 86 Saturday morning, but will soon begin making its way south towards the Panama Canal for its transit to its new home base on Guam. For more on the new cutter, see Thursday’s post.
Coast Guard MH-65s above the FDNY Fire Fighter II 
New York State Police 
NJ State Police and NYPD helicopters
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 