Shipping News, No. 6
New York Harbor Region
Thursday, January 13, 2000

See also: Shipping News; Shipping News: Update; Shipping News, No. 2; Shipping News, No. 2: Update; Shipping News, No. 3; Shipping News, No. 3: Update; Shipping News, No. 4; Shipping News, No. 4: Update; Shipping News, No. 5; Shipping News, No. 5: Update.

The complete lack of container ships noted at Port Newark on Tuesday was replaced Wednesday with bustling activity -- the rail-borne cranes had been repositioned, and four container ships were being loaded and offloaded along the vast pier. Tonight, as icy winds blew across the regions waters, and as the lighting of the vast port and its looming cranes glimmered across the bay in the cold night air, one container vessel remains tied to the bulkhead, its crew waiting for the dawn to bring steam to the engines and head outbound for sea.

Few observations are available to offer with respect to local tug and barge traffic, excepting to note that one member of the largest generation of fuel/oil barge ever observed to move along the waters of the region has been tied-up, empty, for the past twenty-four hours at a channel-side dock. At least one-and-one-half times the length, and twice the width, of some of the more commonly viewed fuel/oil barges (which can be noted tied-up alongside its bulk), its steel hull rises more than twenty-five feet above the waterline -- with the mightiest of the regions tugboats, along with an assist, required to bring it to berth. Why this hulking giant is not about the business of its Twelve Labors remains unknown, yet the daily opportunity cost of inactivity carried by the barges agents must be significant.

A temporary security zone circumscribing Governors Island, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Battery was enacted for one hour earlier this evening, hindering the movements of local commercial harbor traffic. (This nonclassified, recurrent situation is common knowledge among local mariners, as well as among those who pierce the zone while riding upon the decks, or waiting at the terminal, of the Staten Island Ferry.) Thus, the tale can now be more fully appreciated, that a presidential visit brings dread and delay not only to thousands of motorists in the New York metro area, but also to the captains and crews who work the waters against both the movement of the tide and the ticking of the GPS clock.

Todays Quote from The Harbor:

You appear to be dragging your anchor, Sir, please recheck your position.

-- Harbor Guy (HarborGuy@OnThe.Waterfront), January 14, 2000

Answers

Opportunity Cost!

YYyaaaaaaaaaa...

Whew, had a flashback of a dark econ class long ago. "What a week to give up sniffing glue."

-- Squid (ItsDark@down.here), January 14, 2000.

Thanks Harbor Guy..... I read your posts daily, though have little to contribute,so I am classified a "lurker".....:)

Odd how it goes from "busy" to nothing in such a short time...My Dad was in local 333, a LOTTA years ago!

Grew up in NYC (The Village).....went down to pier 17 often to send stuff to relatives in Norway in early 50's...was just a kid then, but remember coffee cans and sugar.....:))))

-- Birdlady (Bird@nest.home), January 14, 2000.

Harbor Guy, love your posts!

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), January 14, 2000.

Harbor Guy,
Just wondering whether you've read The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, as your writing seems to embody much of their advice, resulting in a real treat for the reader.

-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), January 14, 2000.

Squid: Micro or macro :-)

Birdlady: That must have been an interesting time around the docks, when shipping was moving out of its cargo-hold paradigm and into its container phase. The Village was much different then as well, as I understand.

-- Harbor Guy (HarborGuy@OnThe.Waterfront), January 14, 2000.

Ashton & Leska in Cascadia: Many thanks. Did some rock climbing in them there parts for a couple years, beautiful country.

David: Thanks for the compliment. I have an old copy of the Strunk and White on the shelf; the central message of which is "spelling, clarity, simplicity." It is a work that stands the test of time. In fact, even if one does not memorize the rules, the reader's writing skill will increase as if by osmosis, since E.B. White (Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little) himself is an excellent writer. The primary influences on my writing, however, are more seventeenth century.

-- Harbor Guy (HarborGuy@OnThe.Waterfront), January 14, 2000.