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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.
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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 -
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Foxy
Foxy 3, a 50-year old 1,600 HP tug owned by Fox Marine Services according to Tugboat Information .com, has been on the North River this month moving equipment and materials to and from a project site off of Spuyten Duyvil. The work there is likely part of the Champlain Hudson Power Express installation. The cable makes a turn at that point and will pass under the railroad bridge, down the Harlem Ship Canal and on to its final destination in Astoria.
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Asphalt delivery
San Du Ao, a small 13,000 deadweight ton Hong Kong flagged bitumen tanker, came up the North River Friday evening, passing the GW Bridge, Spuyten Duyvil and J24 sailboat. The tanker was arriving from Colombia, not a very common point of origin for cargos coming up the Hudson, and was likely carrying asphalt. San Du Ao is currently unloading at a terminal in Rensselaer. Coming soon to a pothole near you.
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Margaret and Miriam
A pair of Moran tugs ran light up the North River on Thursday, heading for Buchanan where they would assist a bulk ship leaving the dock at the wallboard plant after delivering a cargo of gypsum. On the way up, Margaret shadowed Vane tug Pocomoke heading for Albany with a tank barge probably partially loaded. Miriam had two jobs on the Hudson that day—she headed for Buchanan directly from assisting the visiting German navy ship leaving Pier 88 in the morning. As of Saturday morning, Pocomoke is back on the North River, anchored off North Bergen after calling at Buckeye Albany, while Margaret and Miriam are busy assisting with arrivals and departures at the container terminals.
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 