Could There Be a “New Ship” Smell?

Maybe that’s what made me double back to the East Mooring Basin tonight to check out the gleaming Nantong K.  She was swinging on her anchor chain, pointing her bow right at me (and Calamity Jane, who got there a few minutes before me).

I marveled at the nearly pristine paint on this hull.  It really was amazing.  There was only one set of chain marks across the bullnose!  I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such an unmarked hull before.  A detail shot (click to see the larger version):

When I got home, I did some searching.  So much of what I saw made me think that this was more than just a fresh paint job.  The hull plates aren’t buckled, the anchor chain still shows new paint on the links, none of the railings are bent… basically, it looked nearly virginal.

I found this.  Yes, she is about as new as we’re ever likely to see, having been delivered on July 21, 2011 from Kawasaki Heavy Industries.  Is this her maiden voyage after completion of fitting out?  I don’t know that.  But it’s probably only her second or third voyage at most, as not enough time has passed since her delivery to make more transits than that.

Having inadvertently followed the end of the Sammi Crystal’s career, it’s interesting to stumble upon the beginning of a new Handy-size carrier’s lifespan.

Another Oddity

I popped over the crest of 15th this afternoon to see beautiful shades of sunlit green on the Washington shore and (huh?) a splash of haze gray in the shipping channel.

That particular shade of gray in this river means one of two things: a USN  or an MSC (Military Sealift Command) vessel.  Or perhaps a commercial shipping line wants to make itself a target of international terrorists and I haven’t heard about it yet.  It’s possible, but unlikely.

Since the Rose Festival fleet headed out to sea weeks ago and the silhouette is a bit full, I assume it’s MSC.  The Shipfinder app gives me the name of the vessel, and the stripes on the stack give the rest away.  It’s the SS Cape Intrepid.

I made the larger version a little bigger (double-click on the image) than normal because she’s so unusual.  A single crane mounted forward, a bunch of who-knows-what stacks mounted amidships, and a “launch ramp” that Evel Kneivel would lust after just ahead of the house.  And then there’s the house itself, mounted well forward of typical positioning.  Followed up with the ro-ro ramp at the fantail. 

This is truly a horse designed by committee, but it seems to me that they didn’t screw it up altogether.  It’s still a nice-looking ship!  It just has parts of a break-bulk tramp, a car carrier and something else entirely built onto it.  And it’s got a really nice, rakish bow.

So, she’s no thoroughbred, but she’s not a camel, either. 

I looked around online for some history.

She started life in 1976 as a Lykes vehicle carrier.  Really?  That was pretty good looking as car carriers go. Then became the Arizona (wonder if the crew said extra prayers nightly?), then the Jupiter, and finally the Cape Intrepid.

I’ve seen some photos from other phases of her service, and she’s changed a bit. 

Her mission these days is said to be to support a Marine Amphibious Brigade.  Makes some sense, given her configuration, but something tells me that she wouldn’t be at the point of the spear.  That ramp requires a dock.

The Arrow 2 was heading out to intercept another outbound ship and I happened to catch a view of the Cape Intrepid’s stern.  Not the prettiest hull in the harbor, but she looks like she’s up to the job.

Odd Cargo

I’d barely hit the causeway to the Youngs Bay bridge on the way home this afternoon when my head snapped to the left.

“What the hell is that?”

On a large barge between two tugs was what looked like a Lego representation of a roast turkey, rendered with blue, white and yellow bricks.

And it was HUGE.  As in seven stories above the weather deck of the barge!  And that’s not including the drumsticks.

So, around the roundabout I went and headed for the viewpoint at Carruthers Park between Warrenton and Hammond.

Two other observers happened along during the passage, both asking if I knew if it was “the” oil rig headed for Alaska.  I haven’t heard anything about a drilling rig being constructed in Portland, and I’m no more in the know than any other KMUN listener, but I could tell from my ship-finder app that the next stop for this monstrosity would be Vancouver, BC.

It doesn’t look like the oil rigs that I’m familiar with, but that’s a limited sample.  Maybe it is.  And perhaps Vancouver is just a waystop, and the guesses are correct.

The whole assembly as it passed Hammond:

Under the Rainbow

From the catwalk at Baked Alaska, downtown Astoria, 3/25

ISO 100, 1/30 second at f/8, handheld. 70-300mm G @ 70mm

Last Frame of the Day

The last few days have seen a mix of everything except actual snow and accumulated ice.  We did have a significant buildup of hail on several occasions, though.

We’ve even had some sun, though as the afternoon waned today I thought that was over and done. 

Still, there was an interesting assortment of ships in the anchorage, so I detoured to the East Mooring Basin on my commute home.  I was pleasantly surprised to see the light brightening in the western sky as I made my way out to the breakwater.

But it was fickle and short-lived.  The wind rose and fell.  Half-hearted showers came and went.  The pieces just didn’t fall together in any kind of visual harmony.

I didn’t have a lot of enthusiasm for the shots I’d made, but when I looked at them on the monitor, the last shot of the evening stood out.

It’s arguable that “you had to be there.”  But, the river’s surface flattened out, the sun brightened a part of the sky and the Pacific Fantasy and created a fine degree of contrast for the bridge and the tree line in Warrenton, six miles or more away.

The next wave of rain and hail moved in within minutes.

ISO 200, 1/200 @ f/5.6, 70-300 “G” Zoom at 160mm.  Handheld, no crop.

This really is best viewed in the larger version (click on the image).

Really, Really Up Close and Personal

Take a close look at these captures…

Note that they’re taken 22 minutes apart. Now, keep in mind that the Namrun is at anchor as these were taken, and had been for several days.  In 22 minutes, she and her anchor and chain had been dragged a couple hundred yards.  At one point, her stern was probably less than 80 feet from the outer wall of the East Mooring Basin’s breakwater.

For some time, I’ve wondered if the tracks shown by the ShipTracker app were really accurate or were subject to the “civilian drift” that I’ve been told about… a built-in lack of absolute precision in GPS systems intended for civilian (as opposed to military) use.  Well, now I know that it’s pretty darned close to being dead-on, since I was on the breakwater the whole time.

I never took the kit zoom off the camera this evening.  I didn’t need any more telephoto reach, but I was close to needing more wide-angle angle of view.  This ship was CLOSE!

I included the seawall in the frame to give some sense of the proximity of the ship.  I’ve never seen one drift this close to the seawall.

At first I thought the ship had snagged a crab pot, but these floats are intentionally attached.  I don’t know their purpose.  I haven’t seen anything like them before.

Some crew members taking pictures of people taking pictures.  No crop here.  70mm was all that was needed.

Shot as wide as I could make it… 18mm.

The Arrow 2 speeds back, this time to drop a river pilot off… the ship was underway within a half hour.

Prior to the arrival of the pilot, however, the ship was dragging itself away from the seawall with its anchor winch.  I could hear the chain links coming through the hawsepipe, but couldn’t see it taking place as the bulk of the ship was blocking the view.

All in all, a pretty interesting hour out there.

Really, I Was Being Productive…

But technology (an automatic dryer) kept me hands-off until it was done with the load.

So I went to Coffee Girl and ordered a mocha.  And watched the fog swirl.

It was definitely a day that would have been ideal to set the camera on a tripod and a timer and shoot a few hundred images a second apart… watching the ebb and flow of fog would have been fascinating.

But I had neither the time or the right equipment, so I had to settle for a few stills before going home and folding clothes.

ISO 100, 1/160th @ f/8, 70-300 zoom at 230mm.