Hoboken and Lower Manhattan sixty five years after the devastating Hoboken Pier Fire which killed over three hundred people, mostly German merchant seamen caught in their Trans-Atlantic Liners. The fire consumed piers and warehouses. It was still talked about among the “Old Timers” in my family, railroad workers, when I was a young boy.
In this shot you can see an American Export Lines vessel at a dock (lower left side of photo), could very well be a vessel I sailed as a young engineer. How times have changed.
Nice pic sweat and grease, I have a pretty good photo collection at home to. I was not aware you were going to throw this pop quiz on me or I would have brought more ammo. I will be home the first weel of October I will copy some of mine then. Most of my stuff is from 1988 or newer, I graduated high school in 88 and basically went straight onto the tugs then. I got some good stuff from the oil field and some salvage jobs. One 6000 ton derek barge with the boom broke in half, from the Black Sea in Ukraine. I will get em up as soon as I am back on the beach.
I think all my old photo albums are in the back of my spare bedroom closet. To try and get to them would be like playing jenga. I have pics from SS Independence in Hawaii, USNS Antares, USNS Denebola Operation Restore Hope in Somalia. There’s should be some pics from SS Diamond State and SS Equality State JLOTS exercises. Here are few offshore pics from my iPad photos I will have look through my hard drive for some more. I know SnG wanted to see offshore pics anyways.
EXCELLENT Fragrat - Everyone will appreciate all these wonderful pics - most kind of you to post - Thank you
I thoroughly enjoy reading the threads about offshore as my entire sea time was deep draft vessels.
All I know about off shore is what I read here on gCaptain and various magazines.
The portion of your post about your spare bedroom closet is funny and similar to my cellar. I have boxes and boxes of unopened stuff many of which contain a life time collection of pictures.
One of these days ----------- well maybe.
[QUOTE=ChiefRob;82548]Nice pic sweat and grease, I have a pretty good photo collection at home to. I was not aware you were going to throw this pop quiz on me or I would have brought more ammo. I will be home the first weel of October I will copy some of mine then. Most of my stuff is from 1988 or newer, I graduated high school in 88 and basically went straight onto the tugs then. I got some good stuff from the oil field and some salvage jobs. One 6000 ton derek barge with the boom broke in half, from the Black Sea in Ukraine. I will get em up as soon as I am back on the beach.[/QUOTE]
GREAT - Looking forward to seeing them, Chief.
Thanks
Back in the 60’s if you arrived at your ship in “Todd’s of Hoboken” Shipyard you might recall seeing the famous Maxwell House Coffee building as the taxi you caught outside the Lackawanna Train/Ferry Terminal whisked you up on what is now called Frank Sinatra Drive.
The USNS [I]Geiger[/I] was my first ship, A good friend of mine, a class mate, and I decided to accept an offer by a well known MSTS (as MSC was called back in 62) dispatcher, Mister Tuzio. The Geiger needed two assistant 3rd’s for an immediate Bremerhaven voyage. We both were ready to sail so our sea bags were ready, our brand new licenses were in our eager hands. I loved the job, loved the run, but really wanted to sail on a cargo vessel. After several voyages aboard the Geiger I decided to hook-up with the BMO and American Export Lines. The Chief Engineer aboard the Geiger was a wonderful and most able man, Hipolito Gonzalez.
Another shot of the ENSIGN. Not sure if it the same trip or not as the one above, I was chief on her for many different trips. Taking fuel at the Cataño fuel docks in San Juan Harbor.
One last for now. Looking down onto the back deck of the SEA SKIMMER while underway. Those were my two assistants, and I have forgotten their names. Too long ago, I guess. We went through a lot of assistant engineers on this one. Chiefs, too; truth be told. Pretty sure it was the company and the boat. Couldn’t have been me, right?
The LESLIE LYKES and the RUTH LYKES, laid up in Houston at the old Todd Shipyards, 1984. I sailed on the LESLIE in 79 on the West Coast US to Far East run.
[QUOTE=Sweat-n-Grease;82567]The USNS [I]Geiger[/I] was my first ship, A good friend of mine, a class mate, and I decided to accept an offer by a well known MSTS (as MSC was called back in 62) dispatcher, Mister Tuzio. The Geiger needed two assistant 3rd’s for an immediate Bremerhaven voyage. We both were ready to sail so our sea bags were ready, our brand new licenses were in our eager hands. I loved the job, loved the run, but really wanted to sail on a cargo vessel. After several voyages aboard the Geiger I decided to hook-up with the BMO and American Export Lines. The Chief Engineer aboard the Geiger was a wonderful and most able man, Hipolito Gonzalez.[/QUOTE]
My father rode the Geiger to Germany in 1955 when he was in the Army. The Geiger became a training ship for either Mass. or Maine Maritime one had the Geiger and the other had a sister, the Upshur (I think, Mass. had the Geiger) SUNY Maritime had a 3rd sister ship, the Barrett, as its training ship when I was there ('76-'80). There are a bunch of pics of the Barrett, including a bunch taken onboard just before it was scrapped at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonsan/sets/72157594178667504/
In this one, note that no one bothered to paint over “SUNY Maritime College” before they sent it to rot in the James River. I bet that rusting hulk was a recruiting bonanaza for them.
The COLORADO, in Manila Bay, December of 78. Taken from the MONTANA. States Lines had just gone bankrupt. There was a lein placed on the MONTANA so we couldn’t go anywhere. The powers that be managed to shift it over to the COLORADO and we left. Didn’t complete the rest of the Asial voyage for fear of being arrested again and eventually headed back to the US after steaming aimlessly for a few days. I do remember Christmas Day, we were sailing in the general direction of Japan, yet with no urgency.
In 1987/1988, I did a “side job” during my time off onboard the SEAVIEW as a project engineer. It was a Bollinger Utility boat that was used as a “Research” vessel. We added a diving compressor, “Fisher Nozzles”, a deck crane and a few other goodies. It was chartered by the Mobius Society, headed by Stephan Schwartz. Not sure if he was a con man or not, but he DID live in that psychic fringe and did get the attention of a lot of folks with money. In this project, they were looking for sunken treasure using “remote viewing” (psychics). Of course we had a magnetometer, too. Lots of real suspicious con men were also involved, the type that hang around the marinas in South Florida putting bigger and bigger engines into smaller boats. . . . . Interstingly, one of the remote viewers was Michael Crichton. We set out to search for two Spanish caravels, but didn’t conclusively locate them. We did locate an American Brig, the LEANDER. Interestingly, Schwartz wrote a paper about how successful we were in locating the Brig, yet left out the bit about looking for Spanish treasure. Of course the treasure story could have been the come on to get investors. It doesn’t matter, the project was shut down after a few months with out any real profitable findings. I can say that it was VERY interesting and quite a diverse group onboard. The Captain was a Maine grad that I sailed with for years and the other engineer was one of those barefoot engineers that work or used to work in the oil patch. Last I saw of him, he was Captain on a Tidewater boat some 18 years ago. One of the most interesting folks that I did meet onboard was the late Peter Throckmorton. Peter was an early pioneer of marine archeology. He was onboard to give some legitimacy to our project. I was in for 50 bucks a day and 1/2 of 1% of any findings. I was told that there was the potential for several billion dollars. I am glad I did it. Crappy picture, though.
[QUOTE=cmakin;82771]The COLORADO, in Manila Bay, December of 78. Taken from the MONTANA. States Lines had just gone bankrupt. There was a lein placed on the MONTANA so we couldn’t go anywhere. The powers that be managed to shift it over to the COLORADO and we left. Didn’t complete the rest of the Asial voyage for fear of being arrested again and eventually headed back to the US after steaming aimlessly for a few days. I do remember Christmas Day, we were sailing in the general direction of Japan, yet with no urgency.
