mv. Ocie Clark

Sometimes there are boats on the Ohio River that don't stand out. They're not noticeably new or old. They don't have an unusual design. But they're still there, doing a lot of the work that needs to be done.

Among them is the mv. Ocie Clark of Ingram Barge Co. I've seen it a few times, but I never paid a whole lot of attention to it. Well, I saw it yesterday and decided to give it some of my time and pixels.

The Ocie Clark is older than I thought it was. It was built by St. Louis Ship in 1965. It's 154 feet long and 40 feet wide. Its engines generate 4,800 horsepower.

I don't know why I hardly noticed it on the Ohio River until a year or two ago. Maybe it wasn't there. Maybe I was looking for other boats.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of the Ocie Clark that I got yesterday from Henderson, W.Va.

First, the Ocie Clark is running lightboat, having come down the Ohio from a dock a few miles to the north. It's making the turn to enter the Kanawha.

And here it passes under the Bartow Jones Bridge over the Kanawha, with Point Pleasant in the background.

News roundup 3/30/11

I must have not been paying attention the past decade or so. Posters for the 11th annual Ohio River Way Paddlefest are for sale. As described by cincinnati.com, Paddlefest is "the largest annual canoe/kayak paddling event in the Midwest, involving more than 2,000 paddling their way down the Ohio River." This year's event is June 23-25. It sounds like something I'd like to see. ...


This question comes up ever so often, and now it's being faced on  the Allegheny River. At what point do the locks and dams on the smaller tributaries of the Ohio River become too expensive to operate and maintain, considering their age and traffic levels? ...


Did you know that the world's first commercial nuclear facility dedicated solely to generating electricity went into operation on the banks of the Ohio River more than 50 years ago? I didn't either. ...


Officials in Indiana and Illinois are debating the justification -- economic and otherwise -- of building plants to make natural gas from coal. One of the proposed plants is a $2.65 billion project along the Ohio River at Rockport, Ind. ...


Oh. Spring officially begins this evening around or shortly after suppertime, I'm told. Hooray. Now if we can just get the river to go down and the banks to dry out.