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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.

  • Catch my drift

    The Army Corps of Engineers drift collection vessel (DCV) Hayward came up the North River Saturday morning, on patrol for hazards to navigation. Hayward passed the cottages of Edgewater Colony, a cooperative housing development which is the only place in New Jersey where detached single-family homes sit directly on the Hudson River. On Tuesday morning, Hayward is working on the East River, having departed the Corp’s Caven Point base in Jersey City just after sunrise and moving through Hell Gate by 9 a.m. Corps colleagues on Gelberman, the other local DCV which we see on the North River more frequently of late, is currently on the Arthur Kill.

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive

  • East Coast (of the Hudson) deliver

    Dann Marine’s 2,400 HP tug Gulf Coast came down the North River Friday morning, passing Edgewater and returning with the Double Skin 43 barge from delivering a NY Harbor products cargo at the terminal in New Hamburg, NY. As of Monday morning, Gulf is on the Kill Van Kull having spent the weekend working in the harbor.

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive
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  • Rhode Island bound

    Watching Thomas Dann pass down the North River early Saturday bound for Providence I had no idea how much that city and its residents would be on my mind a few hours later. Thomas has been making regular runs for the past few months with the barge CBC Savannah, ferrying parts for an offshore wind installation from the Port of Coeymans to Rhode Island. The tow arrived at the Port of Providence Sunday morning, a few hours after lockdowns had been lifted and the city was trying to return to normalcy.

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive
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  • Bringing bulk

    Unity Force, a 650-foot Bahamas flagged bulk ship, came up the North River on Wednesday heading for the Port of Coeymans. She was arriving from Egypt and road salt is a likely cargo, though other bulk products are also possible.

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive
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  • Ready to the break the ice

    It’s still a bit early in the season for serious ice, but one of the Coast Guard’s two big Bayonne-based icebreakers, the Sturgeon Bay, was heading north on the North River on Thursday. Sturgeon Bay continued upriver to Kingston where she arrived by sundown. As usual, the 37-year old vessel was putting out a lot of smoke running against the ebb tide. The Coast Guard has an RFI out for proposals to replace these 140-foot boats as well as the smaller 65-foot icebreakers we see on the river but Sturgeon Bay and her local counterpart Penobscot Bay are going to be working hard keeping the upper Hudson navigable for the next four or five years at least until those new boats can be designed and built.

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive
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  • The big guy is back

    The big Christian Reinauer/RTC 145 ATB was back on the North River Wednesday, the first time we’ve seen her here in several years. With a 7,200 HP tug and a 477-foot 150,000 barrel barge, this is one of Reinauer’s biggest units, with the barge even a bit larger than Nicole Leigh’s which we see more often. We saw Christian/145 periodically making trips upriver in 2022, but more recently I believe this ATB has been operating out of ports on the Gulf of Mexico. AIS data shows she left Houston on November 17, reached the Delaware River a week later, and hit New York Harbor by Thanksgiving. Prior to anchoring off Yonkers this week, Christian made a run up to Portland, ME and Boston. As of Thursday morning, the tug was at the Reinauer base on the Kill van Kull, with the barge perhaps loading a new cargo on the Arthur Kill.

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive
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  • Supplying Connecticut

    Sunrise on the North River Wednesday found a pair of Reinauer’s modern ATB units at anchor after returning overnight from delivering New York Harbor fuel or heating oil cargos to terminals in Connecticut ports. Janice Ann/RTC 103, a 4,400 HP 2020 vintage tug paired with a 413 foot/108,000 barrel barge, was anchored off West New York after returning Tuesday evening from New Haven. A little over 1/2 mile further north sat Josephine/RTC 83, a 2018 vintage 4,400 HP tug paired with a smaller 347 foot/86,000 barrel barge who returned from Bridgeport in the early hours of Wednesday.

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive
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  • Cement Coaster Part 2

    Sapphire Coast was northbound on the North River on Tuesday afternoon, heading for Ravenna with a light cement barge. While Dann Marine’s Coral Coast and Treasure Coast have been delivering cement from the Ravenna plant to terminals around New York Harbor this week, as seen in yesterday’s photo of Coral, the more powerful Sapphire with 4,860 HP was coming back from an out-of-town run up to Providence, RI. By sundown, Sapphire was clearing Stony Point and leaving Haverstraw Bay, while Coral was further up the river also heading north and Treasure was moored at the College Point, Queens terminal on Flushing Bay.

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive
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  • Cement coaster

    Coral Coast came up the North River ahead of the weekend with a light cement transporter barge in tow, heading back up to the Amrize cement plant near Ravenna, NY for more of the product after making deliveries at terminals in Bayonne and Queens. A couple of Dann Marine tugs move cement barges regularly down the Hudson but the 55-year old, 3,000 HP Coral is the one we see most often on this route. By Sunday morning, Coral Coast was back in New York City with a new cargo to be mixed locally with aggregate and water to form concrete, arriving at the cement terminal in Flushing Creek by 11 a.m.

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive
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  • Mount St Elias passing by

    Kirby’s Mount St Elias ATB came down the North River Saturday morning, returning from a products delivery up in Newburgh and heading for the Upper Bay. By Sunday morning, the unit was at a pier in Carteret on the Arthur Kill, probably loading a new cargo.

    ©2024 Daniel Katzive
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