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Practice makes perfect
The crew of NY Waterway’s Peter R Weiss ferry practiced man-overboard recovery with a dummy and a rescue net on off West 66th Street Monday.
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A pre-tariff cargo
CB Pacific, a 38,000 deadweight ton products tanker came up the North River at sunset Saturday night, arriving from the refinery port of St. Johns New Brunswick and set to get to a terminal in Albany just a few days before the 10% tariff on Canadian energy products goes into effect. They passed the Vane tug Potomac leaving anchorage with its tanker barge on the hip, perhaps for better control as strong northwest winds ripped across the river.
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On the hip and on the wire
Most of the tugs we see with tanker barges on the North River are in the notch, pushing from astern, but sometimes we see other configurations. On Thursday, Kristen Poling returned from Boston via the Sound with the Eva Leigh Cutler on the wire, and on Friday, Patrice McAllister returned to the harbor with RCM 262 on the hip.
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Not spring yet
March might be coming in like a lamb but there is still ice work up north. Coast Guard Cutter Sturgeon Bay, one of two 140-foot ice breakers based in Bayonne, was on the way back up the North River on the final day of February, passing Vane tug Potomac anchored with a light tank barge off North Bergen. By March 1 morning, Sturgeon Bay was approaching Kingston.
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Sugar Express running local
A cargo of Florida sugar moved up the North River towards Yonkers Wednesday on the Sugar Express barge with the East Coast tug pushing. The Express was moving slowly against a ripping ebb tide bolstered by melting ice up north. But there was probably no rush, as the bulk ship which arrived at the plant earlier in the week with a load of Caribbean sugar would not leave the dock there for another few hours. Sugar Express waited in the anchorage near the plant and was delivered after the bulker left.
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Big and small, old and new
Reinauer Transportation units of different size and age were busy on the North River this week. The big Haggerty Girls/ RTC 107 ATB, with 413 feet on the barge and a 4,000 HP tug headed north on Tuesday for fuel deliveries in Newburgh and Albany. On Wednesday, 1967 vintage 2,200 HP Jill Reinauer had 297 foot RTC 26 returning from Newburgh light.
Haggerty Girls/RTC 107 heading for Newburgh and Albany 
The Haggerty Girls 
Jill Reinauer with RTC 26 
RTC 26 and municipal tanker Rockaway with a cargo of sludge heading for dewatering at the centrifuges on Wards Island -
Exploration
Rowan M. McAllister, vintage 1981 and not generally seen heading upriver, ran light past the bridge Thursday. Rowan went only as far as around Dobbs Ferry before heading back to the harbor, but the next day came back up, I believe with a tanker barge.
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Five for twelve
Buchanan 5 appears to be filling in for Buchanan 12 on the daily Clinton Point quarry run. Five was towing her empty hoppers astern as she headed back north Tuesday morning, which is not a configuration we see very often for tows heading upriver. Meanwhile, 12 appears to be at Caddell’s Dry Dock currently. Hoppers loaded with crushed dolomite rock are brought down from the quarry at Clinton Point near Poughkeepsie on a daily basis to the moorings off Greenville, Jersey City. Empties travel the other way.
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Returning to the front
USCGC Hawser with the towers of Jersey City’s growing Journal Square business district visible tucked in behind Weehawken Coast Guard Cutter Hawser was heading back to ice breaking operations up north after some time at her Bayonne base. Both Hawser and the other 65-foot harbor tug based in Bayonne have been busy keeping the channel and terminal piers clear of ice for barges this winter, along with the larger 140-foot ice breakers. Albany temperatures will get up into the 50s this week so perhaps the ice season is finally coming to a close.
USCGC Hawser passing Marjorie McAllister returning from an assist job at the Yonkers sugar plant -
Spud barge for Yonkers
Stasinos tug David Winslow passed up the North River on Friday with a spud barge in two, heading for the dock at the sugar refinery in Yonkers.
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 