Tag: USCG
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She’s a keeper
Coast Guard buoy tender Katherine Walker, the Keeper of New York Harbor, came up the North River on the first day of June, the first time I have seen her this spring. Kate had some buoys on deck and travelled as far north as lighted buoy 168 just a bit south of Albany, stopping at…
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Summer jobs
Coast Guard ice breaking tug Sturgeon Bay came up the North River from her Bayonne base on Thursday, the first time I have seen either her or her sister Penobscot Bay since ice season ended in March. The 140-foot cutter traveled past the GW Bridge and spent some time off Riverdale before returning home where…
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Patrol boats patrol
The Sandy Hook patrol boat, 87-foot Coast Guard Cutter Bonito, was cruising New York’s waterways over a rainy Memorial Day weekend. On Saturday, she traveled up the East River as far as Hunts Point before coming back and cruising up the North River as far as the Upper West Side. Dawn on Memorial Day finds…
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Fly over
Friday’s commissioning ceremony for the new Coast Guard Fast Response Cutter Vincent Danz at Pier 86 brought a helicopter flyover to the North River. Choppers from the NYPD and New York and New Jersey State Police flew over in formation followed by a pair of Coast Guard MH-65 Dolphins flying up from their base near…
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Welcome to a new cutter
The Coast Guard’s newest Fast Response Cutter, the Vincent Danz, arrived on North River Pier 86 by the Intrepid Museum on Wednesday ahead of her commissioning ceremony on Friday. The cutter is named for an NYPD officer and Coast Guard reservist who died in the September 11 World Trade Center attack. The Danz was met…
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The Feds
Two of New York Harbor’s federal government boats met on the North River Monday, with the Coast Guard cutter Bonito overtaking the Army Corp of Engineers boat Moritz off West New York. Bonito, the current Sandy Hook patrol boat and the only white-hulled cutter based in New York Harbor, was returning to base from a…
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Farewell to ice season
Coast Guard 140-foot icebreaker Penobscot Bay returned to base on Tuesday after spending the past two weeks and, before that, much of the winter, upriver. With the 2026 ice season now finally coming to a close, both the Penobscot and Sturgeon Bay cutters are back at Bayonne, along with the 65-footer Hawser. The winter of…
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FROM THE ARCHIVES: Cabinet visitor
FROM THE ARCHIVES: Exactly a year ago, on March 5 2025, I was hanging out with some local tabloid reporters outside the Manhattan Cruise Terminal as Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem boarded the Coast Guard Cutter Tahoma at Pier 88 where she hosted a meeting with federal law enforcement officials on the ship’s enclosed…
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Aids to navigation
Happy Lunar New Year from NOT the North River. Driving across country this week, I did not expect to encounter Coast Guard vessels, but in Little Rock on Tuesday I found the cutter Muskingum, a 75-foot buoy tender comprised of a towboat paired with a crane barge equipped with a spud in the bow. The…
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Returning to the front
Coast Guard icebreaker Penobscot Bay was on the North River heading back to the front Saturday morning, returning to icebreaking duties up north after a few days back at base in Bayonne. It has been a busy winter for this cutter, along with the other Bayonne-based 140-foot Sturgeon Bay and the smaller 65-footer Hawser. A…
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Help from out of town
Coast Guard cutter Sycamore, a seagoing buoy tender based in Newport, RI, arrived on the North River on Thursday from her homeport to assist with icebreaking operations up north and perhaps with repositioning of buoys displaced by ice. Sycamore, was last here in 2024, but we saw the similar vessel Oak here last winter. Sycamore…
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Breaking ice on the North River
The Coast Guard cutter Hawser was breaking ice between North River Pier 99 and Pier i early Monday morning as temperatures hovered around 11 farenheit. This section of the estuary generally remains navigable without human intervention, with the steady barge traffic and ebb and flow of the tide sufficient to keep the channel clear, but…
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One foot out the door
A crewman had one foot out the door as a Coast Guard MH-65 helicopter flew up the North River about 200 feet over the water. The helo was flying up from its Atlantic City base, turned right over Spuyten Duyvil and flew back down to AC passing over Manhattan. They made a loop around the…
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Business trip
Coast Guard cutter Katherine Walker, the Keeper of the Harbor, was northbound on the North River Tuesday morning, with a red buoy on deck. Katherine travelled up to Hudson River Shoal Lighted Buoy A just south of Poughkeepsie which was reported extinguished in an LNM earlier this month. She spent a little over an hour…
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Jayhawk passing through
A Coast Guard MH-60T Jayhawk helicopter flew up the North River at 500 feet on the way from Elizabeth City North Carolina to Cape Cod Airbase in Falmouth, Mass on Monday. The Jayhawk made a right over Westchester County and continued up the Sound to its destination. Falmouth is the closest base to NY Harbor…
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Port security
A Coast Guard security team in a pair of 45-foot response boats with machine guns mounted provided an escort for the cruise ship Norwegian Breakaway as she dropped lines and departed from North River Pier 88 just before sundown on Monday. They accompanied Breakaway down to the Narrows and then returned to the Staten Island…
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Another black hull
The morning after the Coast Guard’s Penobscot Bay passed up the North River heading for ice breaking duty upriver, another black-hulled cutter came through. The buoy tender Katherine Walker, Keeper of the Harbor, headed north, perhaps to join ice breaking operations or to restore navigational marks knocked off station by ice flows, or both (or…
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Ready to break the ice
Ice has not reached the North River in New York City yet this year, but further north on the Hudson some icebreaking operations have already begun. On Monday, Penobscot Bay, one of two 140–foot ice breakers based in Bayonne was heading upriver, still wearing her Christmas wreath below the wheelhouse and holly strung along the…
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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…
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A visitor from Sandy Hook
The Sandy Hook patrol boat, US Coast Guard Cutter Bonito, was visiting the North River this week. After traveling as far as Tappan Zee Thursday, the cutter spent a very cold moonlit night at the Coast Guard mooring off Edgewater and then did some maneuvering on the river off of Weehawken Friday morning before returning…
North River Notes 