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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.

  • There and back

    The Reinauer Twins/RTC 104 ATB entered the North River Tuesday morning with an oil products cargo bound for Albany as J80 sailboats sailing upwind tacked to stay out of her path.

    After unloading at the Global terminal up there, the unit came back down the North River Friday afternoon with the barge light and high in the water.

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive
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  • Local Patrol

    Numerous Coast Guard and NYPD vessels were enforcing a full closure of the East River as world leaders gathered Tuesday at the UN, including local response boats, some of Bayonne’s black-hulled cutters, and the 154-foot fast response cutter William Chadwick down from Boston. Things were quieter on the North River, but the Sandy Hook patrol boat Bonito did make a trip up as far as the GW Bridge before turning around to anchor overnight in Gravesend Bay. The 89-foot Bonito is the only white-hulled cutter based in New York Harbor. As of Thursday morning, Bonito is closer to home, currently in Sandy Hook Bay.

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive
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  • Returning from a visit

    Vane Brothers tug Patuxent ran light down the North River Tuesday afternoon, returning to the Vane base in Red Hook after traveling upriver to visit the Vane tug Philadelphia anchored with a barge off Spuyten Duyvil. They were perhaps delivering crew and/or equipment up there. On the left edge of the photo, the Mexican tall ship Cuauhtémoc is visible moored at the end of Pier 86.

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive
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  • Moving material

    Haugland Group tug Miss Madeline brought a deck barge up the North River on Saturday morning loaded with construction material which I believe may be concrete mats for the Champlain Hudson Power Express installation underway at various points along the river. The barge and cargo was brought to Haugland’s small bulk cargo port up in Tomkins Cove on the Rockland County shoreline.

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive
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  • Cuauhtemoc is back

    The Mexican navy tall ship Cuauhtémoc arrived on the North River Saturday late afternoon four months after her fatal accident on the East River and four days after leaving dry dock for sea trials. She docked at the end of Pier 86 with assistance from Henry Marine Service Inc. tugs in challenging lighting conditions for photography. The ship has returned to New York City after she left Staten Island’s Caddell Dry Dock on Wednesday for several days of sea trials offshore.

    This is the first time during her extended New York City residence that we have seen Cuauhtémoc on the North River: after the accident in May leaving the South Street Seaport on the East River, she spent some time at an East River pier and then in the Brooklyn Navy Yard before heading to Caddells. The second photo, taken in July shows her at Caddells with her masts still not repaired, and the third photo shows her arriving in May just before the accident.

    Arriving on the North River Saturday
    At Caddells in July
    Arriving in New York in May

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive
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  • A helping hand from security forces

    Security gets tight in New York City ahead of UN Week in September. While most of the action is on the East Side and on the East River, the North River also gets its share of attention. On Friday afternoon, a pair of Coast Guard grey hulled RHIB type boats and 33-foot grey Coast Guard SAFE boat came up the estuary and pulled alongside a recreational boat.

    These are not the typical red-hulled Staten Island-based response boats we often see on port security and rescue drills here but, I believe, are assigned to specialized law enforcement units and may be trucked in for this week’s events. While the equipment was unusual, the interaction with the boater was more typical: they brought him over to an unused floating dock in the 79th Street Boat Basin and waited until a TowBoat arrived to assist him with what were presumably mechanical issues.

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive
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  • A short visit

    The Vane Brothers tug Charleston had the loaded tanker barge Double Skin-506 passing Weehawken in the morning sunlight on Thursday, heading for the oil products terminal just north of Newburgh. After a quick turn there, Charleston was back in New York Harbor 24 hours later, currently docked at the Vane base in Gowanus Bay/Red Hook.

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive
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  • Marine highway delivery

    Ardmore Dauntless, a 38,000 deadweight-ton tanker, came up the North River Tuesday afternoon, arriving from Saint John’s, in New Brunswick, Canada. They went on to moor at the Innovative Surface Solutions plant located in Glenmont, south of Albany, which means magnesium chloride, the primary ingredient in the company’s deicing product, is a likely cargo. Innovative took over a former Texaco oil terminal at this site over ten years ago and converted it to a manufacturing facility, making it, along with the wallboard plant in Buchanan, the cement plant in Coeymans, and the soon-to-be-closed sugar refinery in Yonkers, one of the few remaining manufacturers to directly access the Hudson River marine highway via dedicated piers.

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive

  • Reinforcements

    In a very unusual move, NYC’s DEP brought in a privately-owned sludge tanker barge, the Lisa, to move residual solids from the North River water treatment plant to the Passaic Valley plant in Newark for dewatering on Tuesday, with the tug Vinik No. 6 moving her. The city normally relies on its own fleet of five tankers for this work, but a number of these tankers have been out of service lately: the Hunts Point has been tied up at Wards Island since a fatal explosion several months ago, the old North River tanker has been out of service all year, and, until recently, the tanker Rockaway was getting work done at GMD in Brooklyn Navy Yard. The Lisa has serviced the North River plant in the past but not, as far as I know, for many years and I don’t know why she was brought in this week. Please feel free to reply in the comments if you know more.

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive

  • Let’s dredge again, like we did last summer

    Donjon Marine’s distinctive blue livery was very much in evidence on the North River last week. In addition to regular work moving recycled paper collected by DSNY in Manhattan from Pier 99 to the recycling mill on Staten Island, seasonal dredging was underway at the cruise terminal. The cruise terminal quays are dredged regularly to maintain 38 feet of depth below mean low water, and the spoils are hauled to a dump site off Highlands, NJ where they are used to cap historical pollution that occurred there. The destination for dredged material could change at some point: according to a recent Gothamist report, the so-called HARS (historic area remediation site) off Highlands will reach capacity in September 2026 and a new location for dredged material from around the harbor will need to be found.

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive
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