Tugs of the Savannah

Approaches to Mona Passage: 19 07 N, 068 05W , Spd : 13.4 Kts, Co - 172 T

There is a large lobby of ship enthusiasts that are ardent admirers of the Tug. The tugs are the work horses of the marine industry and are typically small vessels with a strong engine, built more for the power then for the speed. In fact a normal
cruising speed of a tug rarely crosses 10 kts.

Pictured above are a couple of tugs that passed by in the Savannah river. The Edward Moran is a typical tug used for ship handling & it is really beautiful. The tug is a classic and is built along the lines of the tugs made in the late 70's & eighties.
I won't be surprised if that really was the age of the old lady as some of these vessels can last a long time in the rivers fresh water.

The second tug, ugly by most descriptions, including some of my own, is the tug "Savannah" The reason that its front is cut off into a blunt end is because its really meant to carry barges. The US applies cabotage law along its coast. Under this law,
only US vessels can carry oil & cargo along its coast. What this law has resulted in is that bigger ships like ours brings oil from Abroad & discharges the cargo in a couple of ports of US. Then this cargo is transferred to smaller barges (Though
barges bigger than the Asian Standards) and then pushed along the coast by barges such as the Savannah. These type of tugs are designed to fit in behind the barges & the once they are tied snugly, push the barge.

If an older tug like the Edward Moran had to shift a barge, then she would have to tow it around, which is a much harder proposition, require greater skill & dedication. So now we have these deformed punk tugs running all over the US coast.

Well maybe they won't look so bad once tugs like the Edward Moran aren't around to remind us.

Tokyo Express in Savannah

Posted north East of Bahamas : 22 32 N, 070 51W, Spd 13.1, Co 131.8

All mariners think of ships as women. Probably because we don't see many of the real ones. But notwithstanding any and all allegations of sexisms, you have to agree that you can tell a lot about a ship from the way her stern looks.

Pictured above is the Container Ship Tokyo Express discharging Cargo at Savannah.

The information garnered from the picture of the Stern is as follows:

Name : Tokyo Express
Port of Registry : Hamburg
IMO Number : 9193290
Call Sign : DGTX

Points of note:

The picture also shows some neat points of interest to those who think that those points of interest are neat. Firstly, the lifeboat used on the ship is that of the free fall lifeboat. The advantage of these lifeboats is that the owner is required to
install only one of these on the ship. Conventional lifeboat fittings require each side of the vessel to have lifeboats for the total life saving capacity of the ship. The problem with this kind of a lifeboat is that the crew required to go down the
life boat free falls into the water from a height of about 20 meters. Contrary to popular belief, the modern day mariners are not very adventerous.

If you note the call sign of the vessel is marked on top of the lifeboat. Also one intresting thing is that the aft stations (from where the ropes atre passed) is under a deck and is enclosed. It all looks funny to tanker men like myself.

The Second picture shows a dockworker removing the container lashings so that they might be discharged. He is currently opening the cross bars that are still present on his right & their function is self evident. What can't be seen are the twist locks
that are underneath the containers & lock by twisting at the four corners of the containers. Heavy things they are and it used to be a pain to us as cadets to collect them all in the hatch & bring them up at the end of the discharge.

Finally I'm not sure how good the picture is, but on the railing port of the lifeboat is the Jack Staff which has the Port of Registry flag (Germany in this case) & on the stbd is the small mast having the stern lights which are the navigational lights
fitted on the aft facing direction so that ships can be seen from a far enough distance.

Now if only we could pass a legislation to fit these on women...

Free!

Posted North of Bahamas : 27 51 N, 077 35W

It always surprises me how far you can see out at sea. After the months of being at home, when you finally do step out on the bridge of your ship, the horizon is so far far away that you wonder if you ever will catch it.

It is good to be out at sea & especially good to be out of the US. I think I had told you about the IALA buoyage system & how the US has an opposit system in place. Well I always feel that you are going the right way if you keep green on the Starboard.
This seems more then symbolic when you have to keep the green buoys on your Stbd as you leave American port.

Charleston Bay Bridge

I have been sailing on the larger ships for so long that I had almost forgotten how much fun it was to pass under the bridges. Charleston was a dreary place. It was cloudy & rained pretty much throughout the stay there. For some reason, there was no
city in evidence. Most US cities that I have seen are characterized by these clutter of high rises that the Americans inevitably call downtown (I have no idea where that would be in an Indian city) & then spread all around it would be the industrial
area, the warehouses & then the suburbs. If Charleston has a downtown with high rises, they were not visible from the river. But it does have a stunning bridge going for it. The Charleston bay bridge has a charted clearance of 186 feet and we with an
air draft of 132 feet would have comfortably passed under it. But like getting out of a chopper, you always feel like ducking every time you pass under one of these.

US Coast guard 211 at Charleston

Posted at sea : 30 35 N, 082 19W

When alongside the berth at Charleston, this Coastguard vessel passed by. Like the Naval ships, coastguard ships don't carry the names painted on their sides. This one seems to be a supply of support craft of some sort. Charlston is a small port but
there is a substantial presence of the coastguard. This presence is also manifested because there are fewer naval vessels here. I had got to speaking to a chap from the USCG & he was telling me that a pert of the movie "The Guardian" a movie based on
the rescue squad of the USCG, is based on the camp at Norfolk hardly a couple of hours drive from here. I think I'll have to watch that movie again.

That capable fellow told me that there was a bigger presence of the USCG at Norfolk, but the staggering mass of the Naval contingent there meant that no one really noticed the USCG. Or as he put it, " They don't notice us - till things start going
wrong!"

This is also a great snap to see the container handling cranes in the background. These cranes are stowed in the picked up condition when not in use & are lowered once the container ships come to the berth.

Helicopters

posted at sea : 31 49 N, 069 56W

I have been seeing a lot of Helicopters over the last few days. Smaller ports like Charlston & Wilmington didn't have many of these, but Baltimore & Chesapeake had plenty of them. The ones near Chesapeake & Norfolk were mostly military ones but
Baltimore had all types of choppers from News, medevac to Police Choppers. The Chopper refueling jetty was near our Terminal so we would see choppers coming every twenty minutes or so to Land, take fuel & then be on their merry ways.

Chesapeake Bay Departure

GPS : 32 39N , 079 39W

To come out of the Baltimore port, you have to go through a pilotage for about 14 hours & then pass out of the Norfolk & Chesapeake Bay area. As we were coming out of the departure channel, we met another Aircraft carrier on the way in. The Chesapeake
Bay & the Norfolk Naval base are featured a lot in the Tom Clancy Novels & my Brother is very fond of them. I wondered if he was around here, he would have had great fun thinking about the area where Jack Ryan had fun with the Red October.

Sadly the Aircraft Carrier didn't have a single plane above deck & had only one Helicopter that was going all over the place. I suppose if you are the Captain of an aircraft carrier, you can post a lookout pretty much where you want!

Depart Baltimore

GPS Position : 36 13N , 075 02W

Another reason that I liked Baltimore was because it gave a feeling of a classic city. Sort of like a snapshot of an American city from the forties. Cities like New York seem to have lost their soul in the maze of concrete & glass.

Most of the High-rises in Baltimore are concentrated in the Downtown region as is the case with most American cities, but they do look beautiful. I'm not sure which any of these buildings are but I'm sure that almost any Baltimore resident would have
been able to recognize these buildings.

Another picture that intrigued me was this huge Sugar factory called "Domino Sugar". At least I think that is the factory & not an Advert Billboard. For some reason, a sugar factory in a major port of the US seems to be a bit strange. One would imagine
that All American sugar would be made elsewhere.

We did leave Baltimore today, but over the last few ports, I think Baltimore is one of the cities that I would enjoy walking around in.

Baltimore

Current GPS Position : 38 48N, 076 24W

I Liked Baltimore. At least the bit I saw from the five miles away. I had actually planned to roam about in the city, but circumstances pervaded & I stayed on the ship. The evening on the Baltimore River Front was beautiful. As the sun began to come
towards the horizon & people came out in the Sailing boats & small boats for a bit of a sail. As the Sun set, all of these boats came back to the Marina like birds to their nests. Any City that affords its citizens a sail on a weekday can't be all that
bad!

Norfolk Anchorage

GPS : 39 06 N, 076 14W

Norfolk anchorage is not really a very busy place. If you come from the major shipping lanes like the Malacca Straits and the English Channel, you would actually think it a bit deserted. The only things other then a few Container ships that keep
moving to & fro are the Naval Ships from The Norfolk Naval Base. Yesterday I had shown you the Princess I riding to her anchor. On the other side were rows of Aircraft carriers (I counted six!) being refitted. I even spotted the aircraft carrier that
had interfered with the movements of ships the other day. All it sported was a solitary & sad looking plane with no one for company.

In the other picture, you see the Warship 67 coming in the channel being escorted by her Tugs. I chose this picture because you see the Aircraft carrier in the background, & you can even see the sailors lined up on the deck. I'm not sure why all the
sailors are required to line up on deck whenever a Naval vessel comes to port, but I've found that theses Naval chaps are altogether funny chaps.

Princess I & the IALA buoyage

GPS :36 57N, 076 20W

We anchored near the Princess I at the Norfolk anchorage today. The Princess I looks like a Panamax bulk carrier & has five Hatches & four cranes. It's a bulk carrier of just the right size to go to great ports and it's a treat to handle a vessel of
this size. It looks like the chaps there are doing a bit of hatch cleaning as they have partially opened two hatches. In ships like these, you generally have two hatch covers over each hatch & they open by folding and stand up at either ends of the
Hatches. The hatch covers are opened by Hydraulics & waterproof the hatches by thick rubber packing. I remember the many-many times that we had to repair leaks in the hydraulic piping and the testing of the water tightness by hosing down by a fire
hose.

To test the water tightness, one team would go inside the hatch & the other team would start hosing down on the sides of the hatch with a fire hose at good pressure. The tricky part was to let the person inside the hatch know where the team above was
hitting the fire hose. For this purpose, a chap was deputed to stand on top of the hatch and keep hitting the hatch cover with an iron rod near the point where the hose was directed. These were the times when Walki-talkies were a luxury and the only
thing this incessant hammering produced in the team inside the hatch was a throbbing headache.

Another point of interest in the picture is the two buoys. There are two types of Buoyage system adopted by all countries. Region A buoyage is adopted by most of the countries, whereas the US adopts Region B buoyage. (A fact that has caused untold
misery to navigational cadets over the years). Under this buoyage, you are supposed to keep the red buoys to your Starboard & the Green buoys to the port as you enter the port. As you depart the port, the red buoys come on the port. The Princess had
anchored just across the channel and you can see the channel marking buoys with it. Some of the bouys have bells fixed to them and as the bouys wobble due to the weather or the wake of the passing ships, the bells ring. Over a quite sea or at night,
it's a pleasure to hear them ringing out to the waves.

Chesapeake

USA is beyond doubt one of the most beautiful countries in the world. We came into a place called Chesapeake today. It is a berth at the end of three hour long pilotage and passes through the Norfolk Naval Base. The base is one of the biggest naval
bases & also a very old & famous Ship yard. I saw more then twenty naval ships either under construction or being refitted out there. Today they were going to launch an aircraft carrier at 1000 hrs & they had decided to shut down the whole channel for
it. Luckily managed to sneak in just a few hours before the window began. As you pass the Norfolk area, the USS Missouri lies as a Museum on the Port side and a friend works in one of the offices near it. After the Norfolk area, you come to the
sparser countryside with green grass & wide fields. It's a little scary to pass underneath a few draw bridges, but it's a perverse fun to watch all the cars waiting for you to pass so that the bridge will be lowered.

At sea

Its a beautiful day. The sun is out & the visibility is fine. The weekend is on & the local people will start moving out of the marina's in a couple of hours. We were in port yesterday and the amount of boats out on a saturday evening was simply
amazing. They were like bugs moving all around the ship trying to get where ever they might be off to. I'm not sure if the Americans do anything productive on their boats over a weekend, but they sure did make the second mates day. I think he managed
to see three episodes of Baywatch in the Half an hours berthing.

Stuck in the middle of the Ocean

There have not been many entries in my blog over the last few days. The reason for this is that I have joined a Ship again and this particular moment finds me far removed from the Internet. But regardless, I shall keep trying to updating the blog by
email. The only problem with this is that I will not be able to check up on the stuff I write. Probably a good thing. :)

And they also eat!

After the post about the sparrow, I felt obiliged to atleast put out some food for them. They ahd a few pecks, but I'm not sure they are crazy about uncooked rice. :)