The Exxon Valdez was an oil tanker that gained notoriety after running aground in Prince William Sound, spilling its cargo of crude oil into the sea. On 24 March 1989, while owned by the former Exxon Shipping Company, captained by Joseph Hazelwood and First Mate James Kunkel, and bound for Long Beach, California, the vessel ran aground on the Bligh Reef, resulting in the second largest oil spill in United States history. The size of the spill is estimated to have been 40,900 to 120,000 m3. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil spill was listed as the 54th-largest spill in history.
Yaquina is a place-name native to the U.S. state of Oregon.
Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing dams, dikes, and other controls for streams and shorelines; and recovering valuable mineral deposits or marine life having commercial value. In all but a few situations the excavation is undertaken by a specialist floating plant, known as a dredger.
MVSelendang Ayu, IMO number: 9145528, was a Malaysian-registered Panamax bulk cargo ship chartered by the IMC Group. It ran aground off Unalaska Island in western Alaska's Aleutian Islands on 8 December 2004 after its engine failed. Six crew members died when a rescue helicopter was engulfed by a breaking wave; the ship broke in two, resulting in a large oil spill.
The Houston Ship Channel, in Houston, Texas, is part of the Port of Houston, one of the busiest seaports in the world. The channel is the conduit for ocean-going vessels between Houston-area terminals and the Gulf of Mexico, and it serves an increasing volume of inland barge traffic.
NOAA Ship John N. Cobb was a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel in commission from 1970 to 2008. She was named for John Nathan Cobb and was the oldest commissioned ship in the NOAA fleet when she was decommissioned, having previously served in the United States Department of the Interior′s Fish and Wildlife Service from 1950 to 1956 and in the United States Fish and Wildlife Service′s Bureau of Commercial Fisheries from 1956 to 1970 as US FWS John N. Cobb.
William M. Black is a steam-propelled, sidewheel dustpan dredge, named for William Murray Black, now serving as a museum ship in the harbor of Dubuque, Iowa. Built in 1934, she is one of a small number of surviving steam-powered dredges, and one of four surviving United States Army Corps of Engineers dredges. She was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1992. She is open for tours as part of the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium.
The history of steamboats on the Oregon Coast begins in the late 19th century. Before the development of modern road and rail networks, transportation on the coast of Oregon was largely water-borne. This article focuses on inland steamboats and similar craft operating in, from south to north on the coast: Rogue River, Coquille River, Coos Bay, Umpqua River, Siuslaw Bay, Yaquina Bay, Siletz River, and Tillamook Bay. The boats were all very small, nothing like the big sternwheelers and propeller boats that ran on the Columbia River or Puget Sound. There were many of them, however, and they came to be known as the "mosquito fleet."
Yaquina Bay, like Coos Bay, is a shallow coastal bay on the Oregon Coast in the Pacific Northwest of North America. The principal town on Yaquina Bay is Newport, Oregon. The Yaquina River flows into the bay. Until modern roads reached Newport in the late 1920s, the principal transportation method to and from Newport was by ship or boat.
The Portland District is one of the five districts within the Northwestern Division of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The Portland District is made up of some 1,100 civilian and 6 military personnel.
Blue Magpie was a 105-metre Japanese freighter owned by Jinyu Shipping Company. She was registered at Panama, and chartered to a Dutch corporation. In November 1983, she ran aground at Newport, Oregon, spilling 285,000 litres of crude oil into the coastal waters.
The SS Caracas (1881–1889) was a coastal passenger steamship built by William Cramp & Sons in Philadelphia. She was the older sister ship to the Valencia. Both Caracas and Valencia served from New York City to Venezuela. The short life of Caracas ended in 1889, when she ran aground in Yaquina Bay under the name Yaquina Bay.
Sue H. Elmore was a steamboat built for service on the coast of Oregon and southwest Washington. From 1900 to 1917, the vessel's principal route ran from Portland, Oregon down the Columbia River to Astoria, and then west across the Columbia Bar, then south along the Oregon coast to Tillamook Bay. Once at Tillamook Bay, Sue H. Elmore was one of the few vessels that could reach Tillamook City at the extreme southern edge of the mostly very shallow bay. After this Sue H. Elmore was sold, being operated briefly in Puget Sound under the name Bergen, and then for many years, out of San Diego, California as a tugboat under the name Cuyamaca. During World War II Cuyamaca was acquired by the U.S. Army which operated the vessel as ST-361. Afterwards the army sold ST-361 and the vessel returned to civilian ownership, again under the name Cuyamaca. In 1948 Cuyamaca sank in a harbor in Venezuela, but was raised and by the early 1950s, was owned by one A. W. Smith, of Pensacola, Florida. This vessel's former landing place in Tillamook, Oregon is now a municipal park named after the ship.
The SS Arrow was an oil tanker built by Bethlehem Steel Company, Sparrows Point, Baltimore, Maryland in 1948 as the tanker Olympic Games. Renamed Sea Robin in 1960 and finally Arrow in 1962, the ship was a Liberian-registered tanker owned by the Sun Navigation Company. At 551.2 feet in length and 68.3 feet in width, with a draft of 29.9 feet, she was an enlarged version of the standard American World War II tanker design and one of the oldest tankers in the fleet of Aristotle Onassis. The Arrow ran aground and spilled its load of oil into Chedabucto Bay on February 4, 1970. This remains the most significant oil spill off Canada’s East Coast, with some 10,000 tonnes. Only the MV Kurdistan accident has come close, spilling about 6,000 tons of oil after breaking apart in the Cabot Strait on March 15, 1979.
USAVEssayons is a hopper dredge of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Her primary mission is to maintain the entrance bars, rivers, and harbors along the coasts of Alaska, Hawaii, California, Oregon, and Washington. In emergencies, she can also be deployed to the Mississippi River. She is assigned to the Portland District of the Army Corps of Engineers. Her homeport is Portland, Oregon. She was launched in 1982 and remains in service.
USAVEssayons was a hopper dredge of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. At the time of her construction, she was the largest hopper dredge ever built. She was the flagship of the Army Corps of Engineers dredge fleet. Her primary mission was to maintain the entrance to New York Harbor and other East Coast ports, but she was employed all around the United States and at several international locations. She was launched in 1949 and retired in 1980.
Essayons was a dredge boat of the United States Army Corps of Engineers built to clear navigable channels at the mouth of the Mississippi River. The ship was launched in 1868. Her design was unusual and ultimately not successful. She was mechanically unreliable, and spent much of her career undergoing repairs and upgrades to improve her performance. She was sold by the Corps of Engineers in 1882. It is not clear that she had any further employment.
Miss Katie is a hopper dredge owned by EJE Dredging Service, LLC. Her primary mission is to maintain the channels through Oregon Inlet and nearby Hatteras Inlet in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Keeping these navigable waterways open is important to local fishing, recreational boating, and other maritime interests.
Sea Victory was an ocean-going tugboat. She is best known for her long-distance tows of several of the U.S. Navy's most celebrated and historic vessels. For much of her career she was one of the most powerful American-flagged tugs, which earned her major jobs that could not be completed by smaller vessels. She was launched in 1974 and scrapped, likely in 2023.
United States
