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Back stage passes
A visit to the Kill van Kull and Newark Bay Wednesday evening courtesy of Open House New York and the Port Authority can feel like getting back stage for a North River watcher. Much of the cargo we see moving up and down the river originates or terminates here, and many of the tugs who work the river reside here or come for servicing. There are also many vessels here which never come up the river, most notably the big container ships heading for Port Newark, Bayonne, and Elizabeth. The volume of activity down here makes the North River feel like a quiet stream— an effort to write a daily blog of activity on the KvK would quickly be overwhelmed by content. Below are some of the photos I was able to take before it got too dark.
The Robbin’s Reef lighthouse off Constable Hook in Bayonne is where weather in New York Harbor is usually measured. Katherine Walker, namesake of the local Coast Guard buoy tender, once tended this light. 
Most of the 60 privately owned petrochemical terminals which make New York Harbor the busiest refined products port in the country are located along the Arthur Kill, which we didn’t visit. But the Bayonne IMTT along the Kill van Kull is an exception, receiving cargos from foreign refiners and loading cargos on barges for delivery up the Hudson or elsewhere in the Northeast. The Noelle Cutler barge, a North River regular, was loading cargo at IMTT ahead of a trip up the North River the next morning. 
Evelyn Cutler waited across the Kill at a dock in Caddell’s shipyard for the Noelle barge to be loaded, near an out-of-service Staten Isalnd ferry. 
The Liberia flag tanker Laredo Emerald was leaving the IMTT with help from two Moran tractor tugs after discharging cargo and would next head for the Kinder Morgan terminal on the Arthur Kill 
Vane’s Elk River had the GCS 230 barge, one of the last vessels to be built in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, also loading Number 4 oil. The barge was later brought over to Con Ed’s Pier 98 fuel dock on the North River where it is used to store back-up fuel for the nearby 59th Street Steam Plant, which usually burns natural gas. 
A Vane barge was also loading product at IMTT 
Stasinos tug David Wilson exited the KvK to attend to business at Port Liberty in Bayonne. 
The tanker Nord Vanquish was arriving at IMTT to discharge cargo which likely originated at a refinery in Portugal or Spain. Margaret Moran provided an escort 
Margaret was the first tug I ever photographed back in the mid-1980s (see Then and Now) and is still going strong. We only occasionally see her on the North River. 
Doris Moran was tied up on Nord Vanquish’s port side 
US flagged offshore supply ship Polaris was on the way to a wind job site off the Jersey Shore. 
The Brownsville/Petrochem Trader ATB is a massive unit with a 12,000 HP tug and a 521-foot barge. We never see ATB’s this big on the North River. I believe this unit mainly works in the Gulf, coming up to New York Harbor with cargo from there occasionally. 
Captain Brian McAllister had a stern line on the massive 14,000 TEU Evergreen container ship Taipei Triumph heading out for her next port call of Norfolk. 
Norfolk’s Paula Atwell brought a barge loaded with Waste Management containers containing municipal waste loaded in Brooklyn and heading for WM’s Elizabeth transfer station to be loaded on trucks. 
Iona McAllister was making the rounds 
Vane’s Potomac had a bunkering barge alongside an MSC container ship with a ZIM ship further up the pier at Port Newark 
Mary Turecamo was assisting the smaller America container ship departing for her next port call in Charelston 
A look into the Reinauer yard on the KVK found the barge RTC 81 which we often see on the North River with B. Franklin Reinauer. The big RTC 150 barge is 477 feet long and usually paired with Meredith Reinauer. We’ve only seen this unit on the North River once, and it only travelled up to the cruise terminal before turning back (see Big Unit). 
Carver Companies has a small base and dormitory barge on the KvK. Erin Elizabeth was visiting. 
And Daisy Mae was on her way there to tuck in for the night. 
The Mexican tall ship Cuauhtemoc, still without her top masts, is in a dry dock at the Caddell Yard two months after her allesion with the Brooklyn Bridge. 
Several other tugs were also in drydock, including the Kristin Poling seen recently on the North River. ©2024 Daniel Katzive Uncategorized -
Coming or going?
BBC Amethyst, an Antigua-flagged superstructure forward heavy lift cargo ship, came down the North River Monday evening. She was heading for sea and her next port of call in the Dominican Republic after calling at Port of Albany where she either delivered some project cargo from overseas or collected something heavy for export abroad. On the way down, she passed Evelyn Cutler and the Noelle Cutler barge, Albany-bound with a fuel cargo.
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Farewell to Florida?
A small Air Force jet flew a series of loops up the Hudson to Tappen Zee and back to the Battery while en route from Clarksburg WV to Stewart Airport in Newburgh on Monday. I believe this is a T-1a training jet based in Pensacola, though I read that these jets are no longer going to be based there with the final set to depart this month so perhaps this aircraft will not return to that base.
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Blue crab blues
Blue crabs live in the mud at the bottom of the North River. Fisherpeople on Pier i bring them up using traps baited with raw chicken, as was the case with this one caught last week. NYS DEC’s minimum size for a keeper is 4.5 inches and this one was thrown back. The NYS Dept of Health says it is ok for women over 50 and for men to eat six crabs a week (not the green stuff) but recommends women under 50 and children under 15 to avoid them.
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A green and white Thursday
Three of the five tugs that currently wear the distinctive Poling & Cutler green and white livery passed up the North River on Thursday pushing three of the company’s four barges. In the morning, Evelyn Cutler, 3,800 HP, passed by returning from a delivery in Albany with the Noelle Cutler barge. In the afternoon, Kimberly Poling (3,000 HP) came through with the Edwin A Poling barge, also returning from up north. And in the early evening, the company’s largest tug Kristin Poling (5,000 HP) came up the river with the higher capacity Eva Leigh Cutler barge, I believe returning from a run up to New England and heading for anchorage. A few days later, on Sunday morning, we see Evelyn on the upper Hudson returning from another Albany run and about to pass Kimberly heading north with a new cargo near Saugerties, NY. Kristin is taking a break at the Caddell yard on Kill van Kull.
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Have that removed
Coast Guard Cutter Katherine Walker, the Keeper of NY Harbor, came down the North River Thursday, returning to her Bayonne base with Hudson River lighted buoys 3, 11, and 13 on deck. A Coast Guard notice says the three buoys, one of which normally marks the west side of the main channel off Riverdale and the other two just south of Ossining, have been “temporarily disestablished.” I’m not sure why, but this may have something to do with the construction of the CHPE power cable which will be running through here later this year, or perhaps there is another explanation.
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Coming and going
Activity continues in stops and starts at the 69th Street Transfer Bridge restoration project. On Monday, Jessica Francis, a small 25-foot tug came down from Verplanck to remove a small spud barge. Three days later, the much bigger Toula C arrived with the Hughes 280 barge loaded with a crane and other equipment. The construction company’s power boat provided about 500 HP of assistance in placing the barge before it spudded down. Toula C is not local and appears to have come in from Providence or Boston for the job—by Friday morning she was on her way back out of town.
Jessica Frances leaves with a small barge Monday 
Toula C got in position to deliver the Hughes 280 barge Thursday as Carnival Venezia was leaving about a mile to the south 
The barge was nosed into place 
A construction boat helped counter the flood tide and push the barge alongside the structure 
Spuds were dropped 
As the tug crew watched 
Delivery complete, Toula spent the night on a pier in Bayonne and then headed back out of town Friday morning -
A little more sugar
Dann Marine’s Topaz Coast had the dry bulk barge Montville on the wire heading for sea Tuesday evening after discharging sugar at the Yonkers refinery. This cargo appears to have come up from the Gulf coast rather than Florida and the tow was heading back there now. Dann Ocean’s Captain Dann ran light up to the plant ahead of time to assist with sailing the barge.
The 130-year-old Yonkers sugar refinery remains open but will close by the end of this year, with raw sugar cargos instead heading for Baltimore where modifications have been made to allow for 24-hour operation and increased storage. A new industrial occupant seems unlikely in Yonkers, which will mean an end to the working water front in that city, other than the Hudson River pilot station nearby.
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Special delivery
Norfolk Tug’s George Holland came down the North River Monday morning with da cargo of crushed stone from the Clinton Point quarry near Poughkeepsie loaded on one of the company’s barges. Daily stone shipments from Clinton Point are usually brought by Buchanan Marine to moorings off Jersey City, but George brought this shipment straight through to the Arthur Kill and apparently delivered directly to North American Aggregates in Perth Amboy.@
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Apres le deluge
The North River was mirror flat in light northeast wind Tuesday morning and still flowing to sea just after low tide after Monday night’s massive thunderstorms and flooding. Alexandros P, a 656-foot Liberia-flagged bulk ship, came through heading for the Port of Coeymans. Alexandros originated in Garrucha, Spain, which makes gypsum a likely cargo, perhaps an ingredient for the Amrize cement plant next door to the port.
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.
