Pictures of Ships, Tugs, Off Shore Rigs, Barges, and those who work them

A few SL-7 shots.

Approaching the Gatun Locks on the SEALAND MCLEAN. No cargo since we were shifting the ship from the West Coast to the East Coast.


Approach Lock by cmakin, on Flickr

Another couple of shots in the Canal


More Approach Lock by cmakin, on Flickr


Panama Canal by cmakin, on Flickr

Preparing the ALTAIR (ex SEALAND FINANCE) for tow from Philadelphia to New Orleans (Avondale Shipyard) for conversion.


Altair Philly by cmakin, on Flickr

Towing the ALTAIR down the Bay.


Towing Altair by cmakin, on Flickr

Underway with the ALTAIR.


Scan10003 by cmakin, on Flickr

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Great shots, cmakin, how many were aboard the ALTAIR during the tow? Bet you had to carefully watch the weather.

The SS [I]Examiner[/I] was an American Export Lines C-3 Class steam general cargo ship, my final sea year ship. She had 1200 psi boilers with a separately fired superheater, unique for the day. She was on the “Med Run,” I did not want to leave her, I did, however, return back to KP and finished-up with my studies. Graduated with License in hand, signed on the USNS [I]Geiger[/I] as Jr 3rd A/E, she was a troop ship, Bremerhaven was a wonderful experience (if you know what I mean).

[QUOTE=Sweat-n-Grease;82432]…Bet you were in “Port Jeff” a lot.[/QUOTE]

Never, at least not on a ship, I owned an acre of land there intending to build on it, but gave up that idea when I moved to Maine. Mobil had strict segregation of east and west coast fleets. East coast were pure company, west coast were company shop MEBA (deck and engine). The Mobiloil and Syosset ran mostly coastwise on the west coast with occasional trips to Valdez and less often to Drift River and Barbers Pt. Lots of time in central CA offshore moorings.

[QUOTE=Sweat-n-Grease;82437]Great shots, cmakin, how many were aboard the ALTAIR during the tow? Bet you had to carefully watch the weather.[/QUOTE]

I don’t remember. It wasn’t that many. And yeah, weather was a real bitch. Not a fast tow since they had both shafts locked, and those propellers had lots of drag. Then there is the sail area of the hull, too. Coming past Hatteras, we made -1kt for quite a few hours, getting pounded in 30 foot seas (I might even be conservative about the seas, couldn’t take any pictures). When we got to Avondale, I had about one, maybe two days worth of fuel left. The tug PIONEER also towed another SL-7 about 10 hours behind us. As they were off Hatteras, they had major engine problems. Crowley ended up sending another tug up from Jacksonville to swap. We were monitoring the radio calls between them and the office about trying to swap power packs in that weather. They didn’t have enough spares to do all of the repairs. That kind of thing made me a bit paranoid, but we had no mechanical problems. . . . Tugboatin’. Gotta love it.

Oh, and I almost forgot. We played hell getting the ship to follow us into the jetties at Southwest Pass. The current was REALLY running, and they only sent two tugs (at 1K HP if I recall correctly). We ended up getting one of the hawsers caught in the wheel of the ALTAIR (we were towing with two). Got it free, but it was quite a battle. Finally got her to follow into the Pass. We got two more tugs at Head of the Passes. Since Crowley only carries one engineer, I had no break all the way up river, only to get to the shipyard and having to take fuel on arrival. Lots of OT that day; or should I say those 2 days.

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[QUOTE=cmakin;82440]I don’t remember. It wasn’t that many. And yeah, weather was a real bitch. Not a fast tow since they had both shafts locked, and those propellers had lots of drag. Then there is the sail area of the hull, too. Coming past Hatteras, we made -1kt for quite a few hours, getting pounded in 30 foot seas (I might even be conservative about the seas, couldn’t take any pictures). When we got to Avondale, I had about one, maybe two days worth of fuel left. The tug PIONEER also towed another SL-7 about 10 hours behind us. As they were off Hatteras, they had major engine problems. Crowley ended up sending another tug up from Jacksonville to swap. We were monitoring the radio calls between them and the office about trying to swap power packs in that weather. They didn’t have enough spares to do all of the repairs. That kind of thing made me a bit paranoid, but we had no mechanical problems. . . . Tugboatin’. Gotta love it.

Oh, and I almost forgot. We played hell getting the ship to follow us into the jetties at Southwest Pass. The current was REALLY running, and they only sent two tugs (at 1K HP if I recall correctly). We ended up getting one of the hawsers caught in the wheel of the ALTAIR (we were towing with two). Got it free, but it was quite a battle. Finally got her to follow into the Pass. We got two more tugs at Head of the Passes. Since Crowley only carries one engineer, I had no break all the way up river, only to get to the shipyard and having to take fuel on arrival. Lots of OT that day; or should I say those 2 days.[/QUOTE]

WOW !!
Seaman, whether you love us, hate us, or don’t give a fig about us, we don’t care. We are one of a kind.
Thanks for the post.

Another. The only tanker I worked on that wasn’t at least 20 years old was the Mobil Arctic. A real POS. When the Alaska pipeline was built, Mobil wanted to be the first to launch a ship built for the Alaska service. In order to do that, they had Sun enlarge their 80,000 DWT design (I think the Keystone Canyon, Tonsina, Thompson Pass, and Atigun Pass were later examples) Note the ridiculously disproportioned width of the deck house, they dropped on a pre-fab house for one of the 80K DWT ships that had a much smaller beam. Years later when working as a lawyer on a case of two new barges that had their bows fall of on their delivery trip, I learned the Coast Guard had a done a risk analysis of Alaska tankers and assigned them into classes for how often they need to be checked based on the chance of a catastrophic structural failure. The Mobil Arctic was in a high risk class of its own, apparently the hull stresses did not follow the same progression used to enlarge the hull and the transition plates from the stern section to the mid section were inadequate for the large hull. Fortunately, I only had to make one 3-month trip making runs from Valdez to Panama and spent the rest of my time on older ships.
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[QUOTE=jdcavo;82439]Never, at least not on a ship, I owned an acre of land there intending to build on it, but gave up that idea when I moved to Maine. Mobil had strict segregation of east and west coast fleets. East coast were pure company, west coast were company shop MEBA (deck and engine). The Mobiloil and Syosset ran mostly coastwise on the west coast with occasional trips to Valdez and less often to Drift River and Barbers Pt. Lots of time in central CA offshore moorings.[/QUOTE]

Got’cha

Getty ran from Maine to Texas, Port Jeff being one of our favorites, there were others.
I sailed Chief on a split house tanker on the West Coast run, with stops in Dutch Harbor, Valdez, and Hawaii.
Later on, in this thread, I’ll post pictures of this most worthy ship which was taken down by that double hull thingy.
I’m still angry over it after all these years.

Onboard a semi looking at some anchor bolster damage offshore. Had to be at transit draft to allow us to have a look. Yeah, it was as uncomfortable to be there as the picture looked. No handrails on those catwalks down there. . . .


PB100009 by cmakin, on Flickr

[QUOTE=jdcavo;82444]Another. The only tanker I worked on that wasn’t at least 20 years old was the Mobil Arctic. A real POS. When the Alaska pipeline was built, Mobil wanted to be the first to launch a ship built for the Alaska service. In order to do that, they had Sun enlarge their 80,000 DWT design (I think the Keystone Canyon, Tonsina, Thompson Pass, and Atigun Pass were later examples) Note the ridiculously disproportioned width of the deck house, they dropped on a pre-fab house for one of the 80K DWT ships that had a much smaller beam. Years later when working as a lawyer on a case of two new barges that had their bows fall of on their delivery trip, I learned the Coast Guard had a done a risk analysis of Alaska tankers and assigned them into classes for how often they need to be checked based on the chance of a catastrophic structural failure. The Mobil Arctic was in a high risk class of its own, apparently the hull stresses did not follow the same progression used to enlarge the hull and the transition plates from the stern section to the mid section were inadequate for the large hull. Fortunately, I only had to make one 3-month trip making runs from Valdez to Panama and spent the rest of my time on older ships.
[ATTACH]2368[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]

Good Grief
Reminds me of this:

[QUOTE=cmakin;82448]Onboard a semi looking at some anchor bolster damage offshore. Had to be at transit draft to allow us to have a look. Yeah, it was as uncomfortable to be there as the picture looked. No handrails on those catwalks down there. . . .


PB100009 by cmakin, on Flickr[/QUOTE]

YIKES - Splish Splash

I spent more time on the Mobil Meridian (later renamed Seminole) than any other ship. I must have made about 20 or more 3-month trips on her, with close to 100 trips from Valdez to Ferndale, WA. Other than the Manhattan, this was as big as two house tankers got (50,000 DWT). She was a great ship, but was also done in by the double hull requirement.
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[QUOTE=jdcavo;82456]I spent more time on the Mobil Meridian (later renamed Seminole) than any other ship. I must have made about 20 or more 3-month trips on her, with close to 100 trips from Valdez to Ferndale, WA. Other than the Manhattan, this was as big as two house tankers got (50,000 DWT). She was a great ship, but was also done in by the double hull requirement.[/QUOTE]

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What a beautiful picture, wonder why the setting looks so familiar to me.

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That’s some bulbous thing-a-ma-jig !!

You might enjoy this article:

[QUOTE=cmakin;82427]Here are a couple on the MONTANA, back on Thanksgiving Day in 78. These COLORADO Class ships didn’t like seas on the stern quarter. . . .


Scan10020 by cmakin, on Flickr


Scan10027 by cmakin, on Flickr[/QUOTE]

Yeeeeee Haaa - Roll U Fookers

[QUOTE=Sweat-n-Grease;82460]Yeeeeee Haaa - Roll U Fookers[/QUOTE]

You should have heard all the stuff flying one deck below me in the passengers’ quarters. That, and the Chief (an older rummy sort that will remain nameless) wasn’t at all prepared for it and was racked out for most of the day, his crap was flying from his office into his bedroom. What a freaking mess of papers, broken lube oil sample jars, books. . . .I spent a good part of the afternoon helping him clean up in there. He rarely set foot down below. I had already made up my mind by then not to be that kind of engineer. Nice guy, though. Overall a pretty good ship, in spite of some of the characters onboard. Or was it BECAUSE of the characters onboard. . . . .

The end is near. This is a shot looking aft from the MONTANA, at Pier 80 in San Francisco, just before I signed off. States Lines had gone bankrupt during the voyage (we were in Manila for over two weeks because of it-not that I was complaining). The MAINE is already laid up, and the MONTANA was going to shut down as soon as the cargo was discharged. I had sailed on the MAINE just the trip before the MONTANA. There is an out of print book, “The Way of the Seahorse”, written by former States Line head, Jack Dant. Worth reading if you can find it.


Scan10030 by cmakin, on Flickr

[QUOTE=Sweat-n-Grease;82459][ATTACH]2373[/ATTACH]

What a beautiful picture, wonder why the setting looks so familiar to me.[/QUOTE]

It’s off Pt. Reyes, enetering SF Bay from the north.

[QUOTE=cmakin;82461]You should have heard all the stuff flying one deck below me in the passengers’ quarters. That, and the Chief (an older rummy sort that will remain nameless) wasn’t at all prepared for it and was racked out for most of the day, his crap was flying from his office into his bedroom. What a freaking mess of papers, broken lube oil sample jars, books. . . .I spent a good part of the afternoon helping him clean up in there. He rarely set foot down below. I had already made up my mind by then not to be that kind of engineer. Nice guy, though…[/QUOTE]

I sailed with a few, most were WWII seamen who experienced the North Atlantic and more than one sinking not to mention the many alerts. Some took to the bottle and could not shake it. They all were dam good engineers and mates, Chief Engineers and Captains when not into the sauce. I’d probably be in the bottle if I had to experience such a time, an era largely forgotten these days.

[QUOTE=cmakin;82461] Overall a pretty good ship, in spite of some of the characters onboard. Or was it BECAUSE of the characters onboard. . . . .[/QUOTE]

Very well could be both.

Here is a picture of an old Tug that was owned by my Grand Father. Blueline mostly towed coal up and down the East Coast.

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[QUOTE=Tugs;82473]Here is a picture of an old Tug that was owned by my Grand Father. Blueline mostly towed coal up and down the East Coast.

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Many thanks, Tugs
My Uncle and his family lived in New Haven. Back in the late 40’s my Dad dove my family to visit them during one summer (in his 48 Chevy), My Uncle took me to see the docks, I saw tugs exactly like your grandfather’s. I loved it, the smell from the coal fired boilers still resonates well with me. Thanks for a wonderful memory. What is uniquely enjoyable about this forum is how much we link together. That’s nice. When I sailed with Getty the ship would unload in New Haven, of course you know what I was thinking.