Oil & Chemical Tanker ALGOSAR (Re-Visited)

Like they say, "you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover". Just because she may not be as sleek looking as all the other Algoma tankers that we see so often with their bulging bulbous bows, high multi-deck superstructures, and tall monolithic funnels, the 434.5' ALGOSAR which I snapped motoring through Morrisburg, Ontario in July 2013, works as hard as any other tanker plying the Great Lakes, and then some. When launched in 1978 at Levingston Shipyards in Orange, Texas, for Cleveland Tankers of Cleveland, Ohio her was name GEMINI, and despite her squatly appearance and out of this world namesake, she was known then as the largest American flagged powered tanker on the Great Lakes. Along with her fleetmates (which also bore celestial names) MERCURY, SATURN, JUPITER and METEOR, the GEMINI continued to carry heavy oil and asphalt throughout the Great Lakes for Cleveland tankers until she was purchased by Algoma Tankers in 2005 and renamed ALGOSAR.

She is actually the second Algoma tanker to be named ALGOSAR. The first, the former IMPERIAL ST. CLAIR was given the name soon after Algoma Tankers acquired her when they bought out Imperial Oil's marine division in 1997. When ALGOSAR (1) was sold in 2004, the GEMINI, which needed to be flagged Canadian, was purchased the following year and given the name with the suffix "SAR" to commemorate the City of Sarnia which is known in Canada for its massive growth in the petroleum industry located there. I first snapped the 12,000 gross liquid ton ALGOSAR as she was entering the Welland Canal's Lock 8 in Port Colborne on the evening of August 5, 2012. Not the best photo in my "2BeDone" folder but at least I got her.

Algoma Tankers, a division of Algoma Central Corp. is based in St. Catharines, Ontario and have  a fleet of seven tankers. With the exception of the SAR, most of their fleet is less than 11 years old and two of the bigger boats, ALGOMA HANSA and ALGOSEA (snapped approaching Lock 4 by my Maryland friend, Jim Moyer, a few years back http://carlzboats.blogspot.ca/2012/09/tanker-algosea.html) were both built in 1998 and can carry over 17,000 tons of liquid product.

Just like her predecessor which was the first Canadian tanker to operate year-round thus breaking the winter navigation barrier, the ALGOSAR has an ice breaking reinforced bow, and though she's been laid up at Sarnia for the past two winters, while she was the Cleveland Tankers owned GEMINI, she got to experience the wrath of old man winter even during her first year of winter operations in January 1979 when becoming locked in the ice on Saginaw Bay until the U.S. Coast Guard came along to free her.  Nothing unusual about that for both American and Canadian Coast Guards, especially during these past two brutal winters.

Though the ALGOSAR may no longer be the largest powered tanker on the Great Lakes, she's still a pretty nice looking ship to photograph and despite her so-called "different" look, she has continued to remain useful for the last 37 years. More power to you ALGOSAR c):-D

Photo by Brenda Benoit - May 13, 2016

Photo by Jeff Cameron - May 16, 2016

Unfortunately the usefulness of the Sarnia, Ontario namesake did come to an end at as the 2015 shipping season was closing close. Instead of a refit and new coat of paint, contaminates were removed during her winter layup at the old Port Weller Dry Docks and then on May 17, 2017 she became a nameless scrap-tow being led up the Welland Canal to Port Colborne for dismantling. It was the same day that the self unloader PETER R. CRESSWELL   (http://carlzboats.blogspot.com/2016/06/final-voyage-self-unloader-peter-r_27.html) started her final journey to Montreal then eventually being scrapped in Turkey. The two doomed vessels can be seen meeting in Jeff Cameron's photo above.

Though nameless and all Algoma branding removed, the tanker looked pretty much in tacked when I photographed her during a visit to Port Colborne on July 2, 2016 but when I returned to Port on a dreary February 11, 2017, the ALGOSAR could barely be seen while former fleetmate ALGOSOO was well on her way to become just a memory too. Both are now gone but not forgotten.

Harbour Tug LA PRAIRIE

Autumn is here, on paper at least, and though it had been spring for over 6 weeks when I snapped the harbour tug LA PRAIRIE transiting Iroquois Lock on April 28, old man winter had kept this little big tug busy breaking up ice in and around locks Côte Ste. Catherine and St. Lambert a little bit longer than usual and thereby delaying her westerly or upbound trek to her summer work as the Port of Oshawa's harbour tug. Built in 1975 at the East Isle Shipyards in Georgetown, Prince Edward Island her name then was spelled out as "LA PRAIRIE" which as most of us up here in the "Great White North" is aware, it's the French translation for "The Prairie". Oddly enough "LA PRAIRIE" is it's also the name of a South-shore Montreal suburb which this little workhorse would regularly pass while conducting icebreaking or other maintenance tasks along the south-shore canal for her original owner, the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority and with her current boss, the Québec City based Le Groupe Océan who purchased her in 2002. 

Since going into business in 1972 as Aqua-Marine, Le Groupe Océan has become one the largest marine service providers in Canada primarily due to a series of acquisitions since 1987 of regional harbour tug companies along the lower St. Lawrence River. Today with a fleet of over 30 tugs, Océan offers year round efficient harbour towing services to ports like Sept-Îles on the Gulf of St. Lawrence; and Québec, Bécancour, Trois-Rivières, Sorel-Tracy, and Montreal on the St. Lawrence River. Based in Hamilton, Ontario, Océan expanded their services to Oshawa, Toronto, and Hamilton on Lake Ontario and Goderich on Lake Huron when they started Océan Ontario Towing in 2005.
Regardless of the situation, Le Groupe Océan has the resources to rotate their tugs from port to port or to conduct emergency salvaging operations within hours of being requested for assistance. Such was the case for those of us living near the Montreal to Lake Ontario section of the St. Lawrence, where more often this year we have seen heavy-pull tugs like the OCÉAN GEORGIE BAIN, and OCÉAN ROSS GAUDREAULT quickly motoring by to assist grounded vessels like this spring's 623' Polsteam bulk carrier JUNO beneath the Thousand Island Bridge in April, the 730' ALGOMA SPIRIT near Cornwall in May, and when the 286' cruise ship ST. LAURENT rammed into a concrete sill at Eisenhower Lock last June. Each incident resulted in the Seaway being closed for multiple days. The situation could have been far worse had it not been for the aid of Océan's modern and powerful tugs. Oh YAAA!!! c):-D

Sporting Océan's current colours of a royal blue hull and mostly white superstructure with an aquamarine trim near her deck (to acknowledge the company's founding name and colours, "Aqua-Marine", I presume), the nearly 74'x26' LA PRAIRIE perhaps looked somewhat miniature as she proudly motored along through the 776'x80' Iroquois Lock.

After an overnight stop at Kingston, (perhaps to fuel up)  LA PRAIRIE continued her journey to Oshawa where as she's done for many years before, offered assistance where needed. This summer it will have been berthing salties dockside or towing them out of Oshawa's narrow harbour to the deeper waters of Lake Ontario, while next winter she'll be back breaking ice along the Seaway's south shore canal or transferring St. Lawrence River pilots from her homeport in Sorel-Tracy. Like the late great Yogi Berra who died today at age 90, use to say about the game of baseball not being over till it's over, so is true for harbour tugs like the LA PRAIRIE. Rest In Peace Mr. Berra. We'll miss you. :-(( 

Self Unloader ALGOMA MARINER

Call me old fashioned. Call me sentimental. Call me a cab (or perhaps an über these days). Call me anything you want but I really felt proud when I saw the small survey boat KATELYN J. that was tied off to the east wall in Port Stanley on Lake Erie last September and that her homeport was my old home, Port Colborne, or as we call it, "Port", for short.
I don't know if it was because my dad worked on the Welland Canal or if it was because he used to sail on the Lakes and Gulf of St. Lawrence, but as long as I can remember I always got a kick out of seeing where a boat came from. Today, all you have to do is Google the ship's name and in seconds you'll often have several different sites that will tell you all you wanted to know about the boat included what country's flag it flies and it's homeport or port of registry. However, while growing up back then, the only way I could tell, was by trying to figure out the country flag that flew at the ship's stern, or by looking beneath the ship's name located there, and see a city name or her homeport.
Early on it was pretty easy going because the lakers and self unloaders that went through the canal were mostly Canadian or American flagged, but after the St. Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959, it got really interesting because ships from all or world passed by. Some of the country flags I remembered from social studies and geography in school but when I started seeing ships that came from cities like Helsinki, Hamburg and "Split", I'd look them up at the Port library and sit in amazement in front of the library's huge world atlas and see that these boats came all the way from Finland, Germany, Yugoslavia and more. They all passed right by me while waiting for the bridge to come down, and that happened a lot back then.

Believe it or not, I was also as much at aw when a Misener boat went by and I'd see my home, PORT COLBORNE written on the back of their ships then, just like on my friend, Nathan Attard's dad's boat, the SCOTT MISENER in the photo above. That's Nathan's dad, Joe, who was the 3rd engineer, waving ashore just passed the SCOTT's lifeboat davits on the second deck of the aft accommodations section. Whether it was the SCOTT which appears to be motoring towards Lake Ontario at Port Weller (above), or the JOHN O. McKELLER, JOHN E.F. MISENER, J.N. McWATTERS or my favourite, the GEORGE M. CARL, they all appeared to hail from my hometown, PORT COLBORNE. All was good for me (and my strange little mind, obviously) until the new RALPH MISENER came along in 1968, when instead of Port Colborne being displayed on her stern, it read ST. CATHARINES (YUCK c):-()) because in the late 60's Misener moved their head office from Port to St. Kitts, as we called it. Their simple and probably very cost-effective move 24 miles or so down the Welland Canal meant the end to Misener ships being registered in Port Colborne and showing the community as their homeport.

Because Port Colborne was home to Algoma Central's  subsidiary Fraser Ship Repair, the lakeside city and southern entrance to the Welland Canal received the unique acknowledgement of having a ship kind of named after it, the 658' self unloader, ALGOPORT in 1978. Unlike many other Algoma self unloaders, the Collingwood Shipyards built, ALGOPORT, was designed like fleetmates, ALGOWAY and ALGORAIL to specifically be able to service smaller lake ports with a variety of essential trades like stone or road salt along with the usual grain and ore products. Like her sister ALGOBAY, the PORT was a Nova Scotia-class self unloader and during construction she was given an ice strengthened and bulbous bow to work the coastal service during winter months while during the summer would mostly operate on the Great Lakes, St. Lawrence Seaway and Gulf, and Canada's east coast. While making her way to Clarkson, Ontario with a load of gypsum from Little Narrows, Nova Scotia, my fellow boat watching friend, Ron Beaupre, snapped these shots (above and below) of the sleek and well maintained looking ALGOPORT from off his "dock" in Mariatown, just west of Morrisburg as the PORT made her way upbound toward Iroquois Lock in May 2008.

Ron was fortunate for us all to snap the ALGOPORT again about a year later while she was motoring downbound and riding high in ballast just beyond Iroquois Lock (below).

No, on that day, the versatile  ALGOPORT was not destined to pick up a load at an Atlantic Canada port, but was to eventually make her way to China for a face-lift of sorts just like her sister ALGOBAY. With a strengthen hull and new bridge wings added (as seen in Ron's photo), to meet Panama Canal transit specifications, the PORT motored under her own power all the way to Balboa, Panama, on the Pacific Ocean side of the Panama Canal. On July 19, 2009 the ALGOPORT was hooked up to the tug PACIFIC HICKORY which was to take her to Jiangyin, China where after her smaller forebody was removed, a new one that met Seaway-max specifications would be added to her modernized aft section. As fate had it though, all would not be as while only a week away from reaching the destination that would revitalize to her sailing career, the tow encountered the rough seas of Tropical Storm Dujuan and the ALGOPORT broke in half and sank, six years ago yesterday. Little did Ron Beaupre know that when he snapped the ALGOPORT during her last downbound transit as a Nova Scotia-class self unloader, that the ship and her Lake Erie port name, would soon be gone forever, sitting at the bottom of the East China Sea, south of Japan. Thanks for being there that day Ron.

Though there were no injuries, loss of live or environmental concerns, the ship owner was still somewhat caught between a rock and a hard place with a new forebody being built at Jiangyin's Chengxi Shipyards with no aft section to be attached to it. However as luck had it this time, insurance proceeds from the lost at sea ALGOPORT were used to fund the construction for a new aft section. After all was said and done, instead of a rebuild, Algoma Central Corporation took delivery of a completely new self unloader on May 31, 2011. The name she was given was ALGOMA MARINER and as shown in a this photo below taken recently by another boat watching friend, Joanne Crack of Prescott, Ontario, the MARINER's aft section looks exactly like Algoma's new Equinox-class bulk carriers that we regularly see along this section of the St. Lawrence Seaway with the exception of the self unloading boom and machinery attached to her superstructure.  

The Seaway-max ALGOMA MARINER is 740' long by 77' 11" wide and her maximum carrying capacity is 37,162 tons in the mid-summer. Like her predecessor, the MARINER services the Great Lakes, St. Lawrence River and Gulf, and Atlantic Canada's saltwater ports which may explain the extreme rusting conditions on this relatively new ship's bulbous bow.

Even though the name of the ill-fated Nova Scotia-class ALGOPORT was not continued,  ALGOMA MARINER's formal christening was held in Port Colborne on August. 25, 2011 and while having lost her seafaring identity with the demise of Misener Shipping many years earlier, the community's name was returned, as shown in Joanne's photo, as ALGOMA MARINER's  port of registry or homeport.

That was quite the class act on Algoma Central's part, and if you want to see more classy boat snaps along the upper St. Lawrence River and Seaway be sure to become a member of Joanne's Facebook boat group, "The Prescott Anchor" by linking on to:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/438207756313840/. You'll be glad you did!! c):-D

Hey, WAKE UP!! c);-b Plenty of time to nod off after checking the sad but amazing photos in this video entitled "The Sinking of the Algoport" with the background music of Newfoundland's "Great Big Sea" https://youtu.be/Yi2BpyomMAw . I'm lost for words.

Bulk Carrier CLAUDE A. DESGAGNÉS

"Quick & Dirty" Post Take 2!! Yes another hard working beauty that's been collecting dust for far too long in my "2Bdone" folder. Though they have only 18 ships in their liquid and dry bulk carrier fleet, it seems like a week can't go by without at least one  Groupe Desgagnés vessel motoring one way or the other along this end of the upper St. Lawrence River and Seaway. Though more often it's a Desgagnes tanker that we'll see, in these snaps, it's one of their larger dry bulk carriers, the downbound CLAUDE A. DESGAGNÉS that motored by us in Morrisburg, Ontario in June 2013.
Well she's actually called a "Heavy Lift Multi-purpose Dry Cargo" vessel, and just like all of her fleetmates, the dark blue hulled CLAUDE A., looked equally impressive with her standard mustard-yellow banner slashed near the bow and the flying company flag displayed on her stack which is also dark blue. Her superstructure of course is white like the others too along her crimson coloured deck equipment, foremast, hatches and her two monster 150 metric tonne carrying cranes.

By the way, Groupe Desgagnés has been in the shipping business since 1866 when Captain Zéphirin Desgagnés set sail from Les Éboulements on Quebec's Charlevoix region delivering goods on the little wooden schooner, MARY-ANN

When the 454.5' heavy lift-whatever was launched in 2011 in Jiangsu China, her name ELSBORG and was owned by Nordana Line of Soeholm, Denmark. Soon after the ELSBORG was purchased by Groupe Desgagnés of Quebec City and at her christening on July 24, 2012, she was given the name CLAUDE A. DESGAGNÉS in honour of Captain Claude Desgagnés who worked more than 50 years with the company, first as a captain and later as manager in both their marine transportation and stevedore sectors.

Just like her namesake, the CLAUDE A. DESGAGNÉS is a very flexible and versatile ship. Also known as a "Tweendecker", the CLAUDE A. has three decks which allows her to carry dry bulk, or stacked items on the retractable "tweendecks" below, while awkward cargos like wind turbines, pleasure craft, containers, or construction equipment can be lashed off to her upper or "weather" deck. By the way, the CLAUDE A. can also carry up to 665 TEU containers.  Again like all of her Transportation Desgagnés fleetmates, CLAUDE A. DESGAGNÉS has an ice strengthened bow which allows her to cut her way through iced over channels and harbours in the Arctic in the summer and  along Canada's Atlantic coastline during the winter months.

Though CLAUDE A. DESGAGNÉS is Canadian owned and flies Canada's flag when motoring in Great Lakes, St. Lawrence and Arctic waters, the CLAUDE A. she has been known to change her registry to Barbados so that she can operate more affordably when working deep-sea during the winter months. Though she's currently on her way to Diana Bay in near the tip of Norther Quebec, last winter the CLAUDE A. DESGAGNÉS was seen in Singapore, the Panama Canal and Port Everglades, Florida.

Oh-oh!! Looks like Tanner got tried waiting for me to play ball with him and decided to go take a dip in the St. Lawrence. EEEEE!! c):-El I hate it when he gives me one of those "it's not my fault, you know golden retrievers love the water, eh" looks :>b. I hear ya buddy but oh look, here comes another boat. It's the Algoma tanker ALGOSAR.....2Bdone soon!! c):-D

Oil/Chemical Tanker CHEM NORMA

It's not my fault. My orthopedic surgeon said I had to keep my immobilizer brace on for three more weeks and since I now have more time than I know what to do with, I thought I'd try to push out a few extra "quick and dirty posts" of boats that have been lingering around my Carlz Boats "2Bdone" file far too long like the 475' Marshall Island flagged oil & chemical tanker CHEM NORMA which I noticed on two boat groups that I follow on Facebook (the Prescott Anchor & St. Lawrence River Ship Watchers), that the she had made her way upbound through the Seaway last week on her way to Bay City, Michigan. Well this young lady in her flashy red hull did that and right now she's motoring back downbound in the middle of Lake Erie heading to Montreal to juice up before crossing the pond once again. 

Built in Ningbo, China in 2011, the CHEM NORMA with the word "ACE" brightly displayed sideways on her royal blue stack, is owned by Ace Tankers of Amsterdam, Holland.

While returning from a boat shoot along the Welland Canal and a visit with Mommy in Port Colborne in May 2013, I thought I lucked out when I saw that the NORMA was docked in Oshawa, an industrial city that myself and probably most locals might know it more as the "Automotive Capital of Canada" with its huge General Motors plant located there, than a busy Lake Ontario "deep-sea" port.  Just 60 km east of Toronto and only minutes away from the Macdonald-Cartier Freeway (Highway 401) and main railway lines for both Canadian National and CP, the Port of Oshawa has handled over 500 vessels and shipped more than 3 million tonnes of cargo in the last 10 years. I did not know that. Whether it's salt, steel products, asphalt or grain, the lake port handles approximately $23 million worth of cargo annually. Hmmm c)l:-o 

The only downside to this quaint little harbour or 'unexpected oasis' for boat snapping boatnerds like us, is the only clear shot you have of your subject is the section that's facing Lake Ontario or as in this case, NORMA's flattened fat stern (thought I was going to write something else, eh? You're BAD!!). Whether she's underway or tied off, my boat snapping "Three View Rule" is get her: 

1. bow view (dead on, angled or side view with her name, spearhead or foremast, wheelhouse & accommodation if forward, and wake or swell if underway),
2. full length view (complete stem to stern [unless a 1000 footer], superstructures, masts, self unloading booms and cranes all in or in action) and,   
3. stern view (front and back on, wheelhouse and/or accommodation, stack(s), lifeboat, and zoomed to her name and homeport with stirred-up water if underway)  

Anything else I get like a close up of her bridge, or a crewman walking about, or a full flapping Canadian or American flag to me is like an "Oh YAAA!!" However wherever I ventured for another angle shot of this hot looking NORMA, all I came across were high fences, cement barriers, spacious parking areas for heavy equipment that's not there, and lots and lots of trees.

Hey, don't get me wrong, I love trees, (as long as they're not shading my pool) or tall shoreline reeds and especially wild flowers and hollyhocks to accent a photo, but long stacks of rusting rebar, misplaced blue recycling bins and pylons don't simply do it for me. A fence doesn't generally bother me much because I'll just poke my camera lenses between the links, move it this way and that for another angle or two then crop out the undesirables later, but installing two separate layers of fencing, what gives?. Hey, Oshawa Port Authority, I get the message! "Next time, bring a ladder!!" Of course I could always park my car really close to the first barrier of fencing and then while standing on my console and dash, I'll be able to extend my height through the moon roof to get a snap or two away. NAAAA, it'll never work! c);-b.
I couldn't even get a decent bow shot of the 83' harbour tug OMNI RICHELIEU, with her hull and fenders partially covered behind stacks of pallet skids and a "tree". Owned by Le Groupe Ocean of Quebec City, OMNI RICHELIEU is one of 32 tugs in their fleet that's stationed at Oshawa all season long to assist in & out bound vessels. If you haven't already done so, check out this link of the RICHELIEU and fleetmate JERRY C. posted 2 years almost to the day: http://carlzboats.blogspot.ca/2013/08/harbour-tugs-omni-richelieu-jerry-c.html, or NOT.
I may not have snapped all the shots I wanted to get during this boat shoot, but that's not important. The key thing is I got away from the bumper-to-bumper craziness of the 401 for even just a little while. I got to stretch my legs, do and think about something else while viewing and snapping all that's good about living in Canada.

Not exactly a "quick and dirty" post eh? Oh well, I've got another week or two off work to nail that down. Hasta la vista!! c):-D

Oil Tanker VÉGA DESGAGNÉS

What a week and change it has been. It's 4:47 AM a week ago Friday morning, and I'm rushing across a lawn at Baseline Station in Nepean to meet a 4:50 AM bus to take me to my garage to start work at 5:10 when for a nano second I realize I'm tripping on a curb that I didn't see in the dark and am now belly flopping the asphalt roadway. Budda-bing, Budda-splatt. c):-() I could see that my right ankle was already swelling but it seemed to be okay when I got up and started limping to the bus stop. My knee was bleeding and I figured since I was able to "kinda-walk", I was good to go. I made it just in time to the stop to be picked up, went to the garage, ordered my bus, continued to limp along during my circle check and then boogied out to the airport to do my 97 west to Bells Corners.  About 20 minutes into the drive I started having chest pains when I took a deep breath which probably resulted from my Costco bought Contigo stainless steel coffee mug being rammed into my rib cage when I hit the tarmac. So since I fell on the property I called my controller to bring him up to speed and suggested we complete an incident report later on in my shift, just in case I actually hurt myself. After my next trip, the 118 to Hurdman Station, I met with the supervisor at Billings Bridge Station and after completing the report together he told me to take the bus back to the garage and get to a hospital to checkout my injuries. To make an already long story shorter, after 6 hours at Queensway Carleton Hospital's emergency department, the doc finally told me that my ribs were only bruised, my puffed up ankle and sore wrists were slightly sprained but my left knee cap was broken.

The "Good News" was that I didn't need a cast for my knee but instead I was given a leg brace called an "immobilizer" to keep the knee cap in place in hopes that the broken bones would fuse back together preventing the need for surgery which I find out about on August 20. Meanwhile I was told I could walk around provided the immobilizer was on. Of course it's not actually walking that I'm able to do but rather a pendulum-like swing of my bum leg similar to what the character "Chester Goode" did in that old TV western on Saturday nights called "Gunsmoke". 'Oh Mr. Dillon" is what the sidekick (no pun intended), Dennis Weaver use to say while trying to catch up to the marshall until he scored his own TV comedy-drama called "McCloud" and laughed all the way to the bank, or NOT c):-(). 
The 'Untold but not really Bad News" is the reason they call it an 'immobilizer' is because the moment you try to move, that is, stand up or take a step or two, gravity kicks in and the brace starts to slide down your leg leaving you "immobile" and requiring you to stop wherever you are and re-adjust the velcro straps over and over and over again. It's so tiring, all you want to do is sit, which is another bone chilling experience all in itself because the action is no longer called "sitting down" but due to this immobilizing brace that's strapped as tight as you can from your thigh to your shin bone, positioning yourself downward is better termed as "A CONTROLLED CRASH". "Oh how I hope the chair has armrests to guide me into place". Fortunately to date the toilet seat has been down. I could go on, so I will. 

No actually I won't because regardless how troublesome it has been for me (and my direct family), I know from my experience as a transit bus operator in Ottawa, many people are enduring far worse situations than mine. Due to my injuries, obviously I cannot drive a city bus, but you can ditto that too for the  family car (house rules along with going down the stairs to do the laundry, YES!! c):-D). I know being off from over a week now might beckon the question, "Where's my Boat Blog?" Well, I'll have you know I've tried but the only way for me to type and relax my broken knee and swollen ankle is (as the photo up above shows), is to perch my achy break legs on my wife's ottoman (or as we part Newfie's would call it, a "dumpy"**) and reach towards the keyword from about a foot or more away. A great stretch for a stretch but any longer that, it then becomes a extended pain in the butt. That combined with continually being stared at by all kind of birds while working in my home office, and compelling me to take there pictures of them instead of working on a boat blog post. It's been very distracting to say the least. But enough said about my ailments and those darn pretty birds. Let's talk boats...

Like this tweet little tanker, the 462' VÉGA DESGAGNÉS which I snapped at Loyalist Park near Mariatown on Canada Day 2014. Built in 1982 in Helsinki, Finland, this pretty bird has been called many names, nothing bad like when I caught Mr. Squirrel trying to get into the Cardinal feeder, that slimey @#$%^& hairy rat!! No, just nice names like when she was owned by Shell Oil of Rotterdam, Holland, her name was SHELLTRANS, then in 1994 she became ACILIA and BACALAN in 1999. When Groupe Désgagnés of Quebec City purchased her in  2001, her name was changed VÉGA DESGAGNÉS.

"Oh, look at the pretty beak, I mean bow on the VÉGA!" Unlike so many other tankers we see plying the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes which sport "bulbous" bows, VÉGA's is designed like that if an icebreaker and has a 1A Ice classification which is about the norm for ships that may need to cut through ice covered harbours in the Baltic's, (like what she would have done soon after being built), Canada's Atlantic coast line, the Gulf and St. Lawrence River during the winter months.

Oh look at the baby geese with their mommies and daddies going for a swim up river. "Hey, you're going the wrong way!! The nearest golf course in Morrisburg is in the other direction!!"

When I snapped these pics, VÉGA DESGAGNÉS was winding her way around the many Seaway shoals below the surface like a flock of ducks might do while migrating south for the winter. Later that day,   the VÉGA would have made it to the Montreal-East oil refineries and return many more times laden with oil or chemicals from Sarnia or Nanticoke until the shipping season ended in late December 2014. Instead continuing with normal St.Lawrence River and Atlantic Canada trading, VÉGA DESGAGNÉS laid up in Montreal for the last time.

Like a feathered friend that more often dies a violent death by a predator, with her name and Désgagnés banners painted over, all indications suggested that this rare bird would meet the cutter's scorching torch more sooner than later. Instead, she re-hatched to become the Panamanian-flgged FORT ABEL and on August 14, she took off out of Montreal like a bat out of hell, destined to Plateau Dakar, Senegal some 6,244.5 kilometres away, as the crow-flies, that is. "I hope you return again Miss VÉGA or whatever your name is. We'll leave some seed, I mean fuel out for you. Looking forward to your call!"  c):-)

**A "DUMPY" is a Newfoundland term for a square box-like piece of furniture that may be turquoise and rose in colour and covered in genuine-synthetic leather. The top may or may not have a hinge but the dumpy will be opened and filled with discard newspapers and items you might not want to be seen laying around if your mudder come by without calling' eh b'y. Hence the term "DUMPY".   To check the icebreaker bow many Désgagnés tankers have, click on to this link about VEGA's sister, ESTA DESGAGNÉS, http://carlzboats.blogspot.ca/2013/08/tanker-esta-desgagnes.htmlor NOT c):-)B-)

Former U.S. Army Tug BOWDITCH

To quote then President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, "let me make myself perfectly clear" not only am I too "not a crook", but I have to admit other than a warship of any kind, my next favourite boat is a tug. Believe it or DON'T c):-l
Since Port Colborne, Ontario is only 20 miles away from Buffalo, New York, growing up there in the 50's and 60's had one key advantage over most any other Canadian kid growing up back then and that was "American TV". Instead of being stuck with only one TV network in Canada then, the CBC, down there we got three: ABC, NBC, and CBS. Shows, shows and more shows like McHale's Navy, Ensign O'Toole, Convoy, Combat, The Whackiest Ship in the Army and more. In fact though I was only a toddler, I remember being allowed to stay up to watch a show on our black and white TV set called the "Adventures of Tugboat Annie". It was a comedy about this cantankerous women skipper of the tugboat NARCISSUS and her ongoing calamities while taking work away from her rival, Horatio Bullwinkle who captained the tug SALAMANDER. I used to get such a charge out of seeing these small but powerful boats motor at full speed around a harbour like in this link of the show's opening credits (https://youtu.be/5cRHf_FQS_g) or seeing photos and painting in library books of Moran tugs with their red cabins and wheelhouse, and the big white "M" displayed on their black smoke stacks while nudging a huge Cunard passenger ship or the USS UNITED STATES to her dock in New York harbour. I guess you can see why I got hooked on tugboats, eh. c):-D

As we drove along Riverside Drive, in Clayton, New York during our recent "Journey to the OTHER SIDE!!, I couldn't help but notice a good size boat tied off to a jetty behind what looked like a warehouse. I reversed the car to get a better look and there she was, a "tugboat" with a red pilothouse and cabins, and a black stack just like the Moran harbour tugs I saw in the library books as a kid. She even had a bridge ladder below her pilothouse just the NARCISSUS in "Tugboat Annie". YES!! Well I couldn't park and get out of the car fast enough. I scurried down though a boathouse to the waterfront to snap the 71' tug BOWDITCH. Oh YAAA!!! c):-))

While snapping these pics, her skipper, Captain DeWitt Withington came over and told me that the BOWDITCH used to be an army tug and also served with the U.S Army Corp of Engineers before being sold for civilian use. He also mentioned that she's currently used for salvage work along with the other former army tug his company, Abaco Marine Towing LLC owns, the 61.5' CARINA T-516 parked beside the BOWDITCH.

When launched in 1954 at the Missouri Valley Bridge and Iron Works Yard in Leavenworth, Kansas, she was wasn't given a name, but instead a number, ST-1991 and she was one of the 202 "Small Tugs" that  were built in the early 1950's for the U.S. Army and ranged in sizes between 65' to approximately 100' in length. Say what, the Army has boats? c):-o
Actually during World War II, the American army operated over 127,000 pieces of floating equipment which included landings crafts, amphibians, modular bridges and over 700 tugboats. The 71' ST-1991 spent most of her 4O year career with 73rd Transportation (Floating Craft) Company at Fort Eustis, Virginia and though she did not serve in Viet Nam, ST-1991 would have been used to train personnel for deployment as well as complete heavy tows within the harbour and limited offshore terminals, along with berthing and unberthing cargo ships.
Other than her participation in a joint service sail past ceremony for the Vice President Dan Quayle on July 4th, 1989, I wasn't able to find out much about ST-1991's actual tasks and accomplishment during her days in the Army or when she was transferred over to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and renamed ORISKANY. When retired in 1994, she was sold to a Port Everglades based towing company and to be frank, she was given the corny name: HOT DOG. Fortunately, soon after she was sold to Abaco Marine Towing LLC of Clayton, New York she was given a more distinctive name, the BOWDITCH. Nathaniel Bowditch was an early American mathematician who was especially known as the founder of modern maritime navigation. His book, "The New American Practical Navigator" was first published in 1802 and is carried on board every commissioned U.S. Navy ship. By the way, for weekend boat watching warriors like myself who might believe the first part of her name, "Bow" would rhyme with "Cow" or refer to the less often these day "pointy" section at the front of a ship, but in this case "Bow" rhymes with "Tow" which is one of BOWDITCH's common any day tasks in the marine salvage business along the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario.

This came especially true on the night of March 27, 2012 when a fire broke in the engine room of the downbound tug PATRICE MCALLISTER off Ontario's Prince Edward Point. Though the tug was in Canadian waters, the call for help was heard and actioned by coast guard and airborne search and rescue crews on both sides of the border. BOWDITCH was the first vessel at the scene and when she arrived the MCALLISTER's cabins and pilothouse were engulfed in flames.

BOWDITCH and burned out PATRICE McALLISTER at Clayton, NY

- Photo from Abaco Marine Towing LLC's website 

Immediately, BOWDITCH's water cannon atop of her pilothouse and onboard firehoses went into action, and while her crews extinguished the fire, five  crew members were transferred to the Canadian Coast Guard motorized lifeboat CAPE HEARNE and then transported to Kingston, Ontario. Meanwhile, the tug's chief engineer who was injured when the fire broke out was air lifted by a Royal Canadian Air Force search & rescue helicopter to Belleville, Ontario's hospital and then later transferred to Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto where he died the next day. Even though the stricken tug's rudder was jammed at a 10 degree angle. BOWDITCH was able to tow the burnt out PATRICE MCALLISTER to Clayton, New York, the nearest port with appropriate dock space available for both Canadian and American transport & safety board investigation officials to inspect her. Though nameless and working hard without significance or acknowledgement for so many year, the former "small" army tug BOWDITCH came through "big-time" that night, and deserves a "Hero Ship" significance in my book.

When not BOWDITCH's skipper, Captain DeWitt Withington is a seaway marine pilot and owner of a unique little shop on Riverside Drive in Clayton called "The Gold Locker". There, you will find really neat coffee table friendly rope work, charts, notecards and one of a kind mounted prints of photos taken by the Captain while piloting various salties on Lake Ontario and along the Seaway like the one behind our shaking hands of the final downbound salty of last year's shipping season, the 473' Norwegian tanker STEN BERGEN cutting through clear as glass ice between Eisenhower and Snell Locks.

BOWDITCH underway near Clayton from the Abaco Marine website.

As for the BOWDITCH, though working hard nameless for so many year, this former U.S. Army tug came through "big-time" on that cold night in March 2012, and I look forward to seeing her again during our next "Journey to the OTHER SIDE!!

UPDATE 
- March 5/20:

I never did make it back up the St. Lawrence to Clayton for another photo op of the BOWDITCH, which is especially disappointing because I have recently been told the former Army tug was sold in September and is now based at Beaver Island, Michigan. Sad that she's now so far away but glad that she's still active and being of use which is what we all would like as we get older in life. She and her crews have experienced so much including a near fatal end in 1970's. Now that's an interesting story. To be continued.... 

     

UPDATE - APRIL 19, 2020: ...I still don't have all the details of what this hardworking veteran tug is up to but in this photo captured by Barry Andersen, of St. Catharines, Ontario on September 6, 2019, the BOWDITCH is passing through my old hometown, Port Colborne, Ontario on Lake Erie, while in transit to Beaver Island. Still trying to confirm her new owner, tasks and if her name is about to change again. Sorry but her story is not over just yet...

...I don't know if it has to do with COVID-19 or some other circumstances but I still have not been able to make contact with the BOWDITCH (ST-1991)'s new owner on Beaver Island. Meanwhile here's a couple of photos I found from an area TV station of the former Army tug covered in snow on January 8, 2020.