Interesting Visitor to our Port

She first appeared earlier this week, caught on the Port of Brookings Web Cam that I haunt, and was quite a surprise. Since then, she's popped in and out of the harbor at various times and piqued my curiosity quite a bit. Last night, I was able to read the name and info on her bow in this photo and I did a little on-line research and found a great article.

She is the US Army Corps of Engineer's hopper-dredge, the Yaquina. At 200' long, 58' wide with a draft of 17', she's much, much larger than anything that generally comes into this harbor, and this is about as far as she can go, I assume. From my observations, she tends to ease into this point, turn around, and head back out. The first day she was here for awhile, perhaps overnight, and then for awhile the next day.

Her configuration, with that deeply open hull, is really interesting. She's built to handle rough seas, but I have to wonder how that open hull handles in such weather. On the other hand, I'm not too familiar with anything that doesn't have sails.

Out she goes again. Hard to tell if she's working (dredging our channel) or just stopping by for some reason, although in a conversation with a crab fisherman on the dock this morning, he said she was working. But then, she leaves the channel and sits out off the coast for long periods of time. But again -- what do I know?

She was here once more, early this morning, then sailed away......

This is where she pulls in and turns around. I went down to the harbor to the Farmer's Market, stopped at the public fishing pier to take this photo. Foggy and wet this morning but all was not lost -- I learned the art of crabbing off our pier!

If you have the time and inclination, read the article. It's really quite interesting.