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Big visitor
Tuesday morning found the big Kirby Sea Hawk / ATC 21 ATB emerging from the fog on the North River opposite Port Imperial. The unit had dropped anchor a bit south of the usual North River anchorage area after returning from Boston during the heavy rains late Monday. With an 8,000 HP tug and a 450-foot 120,000 barrel barge, this is on the large end for ATBs we see on the Hudson.
This unit does not travel to terminals upriver but rather seems to be moving product from New Jersey terminals to Boston lately though we have seen her using the anchorage area during at least one storm in the past.
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Reinauer parking
Monday morning finds a pair of Reinauer ATBs at anchor on the North River having stopped here on the way back from product deliveries in Albany. The Janice Ann / RTC 103 unit, a 4,400 HP tug paired with a 108,000 barrel barge, was off Guttenberg, while sitting at anchor about half a mile north was Josephine / RTC 83, a similarly powered tug paired with a smaller 85,000 barrel barge. After a beautiful weekend, heavy rain and thunderstorms are expected to move in this evening.
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After New Haven
Monday found Reinauer’s B. Franklin/RTC 81 ATB arriving at anchorage on the North River just as Centerline’s C.F. Campbell tug was leaving with the Flaco barge. The units passed each other off Pier i. The B. Franklin was arriving from a run out to New Haven and didn’t stay long—by late Monday she was loading a new cargo on the Arthur Kill and then heading for Quincy Mass via the outside route off the south shore of Long Island. CF had also been to New Haven that prior weekend, but has not left New York Harbor yet this week.
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Made in New York
Island Trader, an 800-HP tug owned by Stevens Towing of South Carolina, came down the North River heading for the Upper Bay with a deck barge loaded with a shrink-wrapped piece of heavy equipment. This is likely something manufactured by GE in Schenectady and transferred to a barge at the Port of Albany. From here it will likely be transferred to a ship for export or continue by barge to a port closer to an ultimate destination in the US.
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Getting stone
Norfolk Tug’s George Holland, 18 years old and 3,000 HP, was northbound on the North River with the company’s hopper barge Ellen on Tuesday morning. The tow was en route to the Clinton Point quarry just south of Poughkeepsie where they would likely be loading a stone cargo for delivery back in New York Harbor.
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Remember Hess
Sea Wolf Marine tugs Sea Fox and Sea Lion brought a construction barge down the North River on Sunday from the work site at the location of the old Hess tanks in Edgewater, NJ. The green tanks were a landmark on that stretch of the river for decades but have been gone for over 10 years now.
The site, one of the last remaining brownfield lots along the Gold Coast, needed extensive remediation but is now being redeveloped as luxury housing with park land along the water. The development is also slated to include a ferry landing built on the footings of the oil product terminal’s old loading pier, though it is not clear (to me) whether this will supplement or replace the existing Edgewater ferry terminal a bit further south by the Edgewater Marina.
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Three’s Company
The camera lens compresses distance and can make the North River look narrow from the shore, but it is at least a 1/2 nautical mile wide as it reaches past Manhattan and the channel can easily accommodate multiple vessels. On Sunday afternoon, Centerline tug C.F. Campbell came up the east side of the river coming from New Haven, heading for anchorage and passing the Ruth Reinauer ATB at anchor off Guttenberg. Meanwhile, on the west side of the channel, Carver’s big Erin Elizabeth towboat was coming through with scrap barges loaded in Coeymans and heading for Bayonne.
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Maddie and Kristin, stone and fuel
New York Sate Marine Highway Transportation’s Maddie K, 2,000 HP and nearly 50 years old, brought stone hoppers back upstate last weekend.She passed the Kristin Poling, the largest tug in the Poling & Cutler fleet, off Guttenberg where Kristin had spent most of the week anchored with the Eva Leigh Cutler tank barge. A little over a week later, Maddie is northbound on the Hudson approaching Albany while Kristin is in Boston Harbor. Stone and fuel are the main barge cargos we see on the Hudson River marine highway daily.
©2024 Daniel Katzive Uncategorized -
Decommissioning
Donjon tugs Douglas J (4,800 HP) and Paul Andrew (1,200 HP) brought the company’s big Chesapeake 1000 crane down the North River on Thursday afternoon, passing Guttenberg on the way back to the harbor after heavy lift work at the old Yonkers sugar refinery. My guess is that work there probably relates to decommissioning the sugar plant which closed at the end of last year after operating in that location for over 100 years and used to take deliveries by ship and barge around 40 times per year.
The city wants to see the property redeveloped for residential and public use and Bisnow reported in April that the 33-acre site has now been listed for sale by the owners, American Sugar Refining. This means one less node on the Hudson River marine highway, and leaves the wallboard plant in Buchanan and fuel terminal in Peekskill as the only working waterfronts on the Westchester shoreline aside from a handful of boatyards for smaller vessels. -
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.
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 