Bertha’s Future

. . . literally hangs in the balance in the next weeks.  This 1925 Tyne River-built flat-bottomed timber tug needs $150,000 pledged, or  . . .        I’ll come back to the  ” . . . or”    To pledge, click on the image of the tug to the left, click on the contribute button, and follow the prompts.

Bertha was one of four of these tugs used to move booms of timber to the mill in the Bay of Islands area of western Newfoundland starting in the mid-1920s.  Click here for fotos of that timber operation; particularly appropriate are fotos # 189, 259, and 263.

Darren Vigilant (below) bought Bertha in 1999, drove her to New York, and if you were  paying  attention to the harbor from that time, you might recall seeing it.    Click here to see fotos from then as well as an illustrated history of the vessel and lists of what has been done and remains.  Currently, she’s in a yard in Staten Island.

I took these fotos last weekend and will

be adding followups in the weeks to come.

But the clock is ticking.  Here is the  ” . . . or else” part.

Time is running out, and Bertha could be scrapped and added to the half million dollar pile of metal chunks.

Shudder the thought.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who’d love to see any fotos you might have of Bertha sailing in New York harbor between 1999 and 2003.   Click on the image below to hear Darren make a plea for the boat.