You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Clearwater’ category.
Closed fist . . . not a monkey’s fist . . . evokes many, many things. It could signal a stop, a hold, a dramatic pause in the music, but this fist happens to be the forward portion of the tiller on Clearwater, a vessel synonymous with music. Just over exactly 40 years ago Clearwater came off the ways in Maine named as a wish, the thing desired itself: clear water, in the Hudson and elsewhere. Just clear enough water to swim in, at least. To drink . . . and the shellfish of which to eat . . .
Captain Nick welcomes passengers on board . . . To me his stance suggests a conductor gathering the focus of the band.
Raising Clearwater‘s 3,000lb main sail requires “Many hands make light work,” says Pete Seeger.
Like a nautical still life . . . all lines taut . . . let the music . . .
begin. I once had a dream about living in a house that transformed itself into the sounding box of an immense piano. All the lines involved in handling Clearwater sail–were they strings of an instrument–would charming music make. How her hull would resonate. Pick a key . . . sort of like . . jib and bowsprit point to Teller Point at the south end
of Croton Point Park.
Line flemish coiled like a treble clef? I’ve never understood clefs yet admired their curves.
The Captain’s face focused on
the space to fill with music. Tack toward Hook Mountain, looking south from Haverstraw Bay. Let the
music begin–Rich Hines and The Hillbilly Drifters. Check out their schedule here.
Photo credit to Rene Arnessen. Fotos #2 and 8 by Jeff Anzevino, who provides the ideas for the post. Jeff is second from left above.
Final shots below are mine.
I’ve never sailed Clearwater, though I’ve surely sailed near her enough. Here canal tug Governor Cleveland chugs between us.
I guess it’s high time I step aboard.
Mark your calendars for July 23 . . . at Barge 79 in Red Hook . . . Waterfront Museum hosts a talk by Clearwater captains on her 40 years.
By the way, Clearwater‘s maiden voyage from South Bristol, Maine, involved a stop at South Street Seaport. Does anyone have fotos of her at the Pier there? Any recollection of the cermony there?
I still find it strange to call this Day 5 of River Day: I’d feel better calling it hours 97 through 120 of the Day. Regardless, Day 5 ended in the former capital of the state of New York, a city today of 22,000. Saying Kingston lies about 80 miles north of the Battery does not address how different it feels from New York City. And yet this brings up Heraclitus: No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man. In other words, the water in Kingston today will flow through the sixth boro maybe only a few dozen hours later, so . . . by my own fuzzy logic, Kingston could be considered part of the sixth boro. Here’s Cornell and Governor Cleveland, equally at home in Kingston’s Rondout Creek here or the Upper Bay of NYC.
From a distance, the Day 5 flotilla looks similar to other days, a stretched out procession impossible to photograph well in its entirety. From a different perspective, I wonder whether during the upriver trip of the Half Moon 400 years ago, canoes may have accompanied it for parts of the way: use your imagination here to transform fiberglass runabouts to canoes. The shore here may appear today as it did in Hudson’s day.
Onrust, Governor Cleveland, and John J. Harvey are in this procession for the duration,
as is Clearwater, here with the sloop Woody Guthrie.
More Woody Guthrie soon, I promise. By the way, the singer Woody used to live on Mermaid Avenue in Coney Island, location of the mermaid parade NEXT weekend! That’s cutter Ridley in the background, named for a turtle!
Meet Owl, who came to greet. Anyone help with info on Owl?
So did a host of small steamers, a unique throwback to an earlier Kingston.
Also, this cabin cruiser sports an exotic propulsion system: an outboard clamped onto the swim platform; now that’s something you’d never seen 80 miles to the south.
The same is true for Willi Bohrmann. More Willi fotos tomorrow.
Even the wildlife came along the creek, as had deer of 100 generations earlier when Hudson first sailed in.
Thanks to Jeff for this concluding foto for today: a cyclopean tugster happily perched on tugboat Cornell.
All fotos except the last one here by Will Van Dorp.
For a different take on the end of Day 5 of River Day, see Old Salt here.
River Day is eight days if you want to be technical. I’d like to do all of them, but . . . The fotos here are roughly chronological and exclude relatively new active duty government boats. Most of these vessels have appeared on this blog before; use the search window if you wish to locate these posts. Minimal prose today. First, the raison d’etre, Half Moon passing Robbins Light.
The “other” Dutch boat Onrust, not actually a replica of a boat made in the Low Countries.
Shearwater passing in front of MOT (or MOTBY) and Explorer of the Seas.
Fireboat John J Harvey.
Vintage sky traffic.
Mystic Whaler
Clipper City
Clearwater
R. Ian Fletcher
Governor Cleveland
Adirondack
Harvey again
Onrust again
OK, this is the quiz portion of the post.
Quiz continues. . . .
. . .
A little over 25 miles (and six hours) from the starting point, Half Moon passes the Tarrytown Light.
And judging from the “face” in the stern of Onrust, launched less than a month ago, she’s a happy yacht.
River Day will give Bowsprite so much fodder for continuing her sailing ship guide that she might not know where to begin! Tomorrow’s itinerary is the 30 miles approximately between the Tappan Zee and Newburgh.
Many thanks to ExploreNY400 for the press passes and to Nicole for going the extra mile so that we got got the best fotos as well as to the staff of Circle Line who ran the very hospitable but unpictured vessel we were on.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp on River Day 1. More to come.
So . . . can you think of any sixth boro schooners NOT depicted here? I can think of a handful. I wonder why they didn’t participate . . . .
Also, given the dearth of historical detail on the real Henry Hudson, Bowsprite and I have been reading his mate–R Juet’s log–and “interpreting/extrapolating Henry’s thoughts here.
No more sails using this jib.
All these shots were taken in a 24-hour period recently, the one above and all those below.
Four kids in this small sailboat seemed to cut dangerously close to Buchanan 12 pushing eleven gravel barges toward Haverstraw. By the way, at 3000 hp, the big Buchanan 12 generates less horsepower than the MK V (Mako’s) featured in Speed and 1 and 2 posts, not torque, just horsepower.
Lettie G. Howard sails past the Hess tanks in Edgewater, NJ. Check this link for a 1989 shot of Lettie!
Pride of Baltimore 2 with only the topsail set takes passengers toward Ellis Island. Check this in case you wonder about the 2.
Clearwater sails northward toward Tappan Zee Bridge. The festival this year coincides with the solstice in case you’re not going to Coney Island.
Mystic Whaler heads past Storm King toward West Point. Support your local sail.
Thornton Bros has appeared on this blog before but never such a close-up.
John B. Caddell has maybe a dozen appearances already,
A different shot of this still-unidentified tug stuck in March canal ice was here last week. Any identifiers? Near Lock 28B.
This is Dania‘s debut, although I’m unable to learn much about this tanker with a fairly common name.
and when Clearwater is included in this list, who’s greenest of all? And yup, happy that day! Cheers.
This title last emerged back in January, mid-winter. Mid-summer returns it. Some rhythms flow and ebb like the tides, energy levels, breathing, the moon. So do movements on the watery boro. Below see sloop Clearwater sailing ‘tween wooded banks, Indy in pursuit, and
below Clearwater motors south ‘tween Manhattan and Weehawken.
Empty Vane barge Double Skin 56 ebbs southward, stern first
on the hip of tug Wicomico, Louisiana-built tug named for the river in Maryland and small sibling of Brandywine, (see fantastic launch sequence) and
then the full Double Skin 56 gets pushed northward.
Red Hook’s transformation demonstrates an entirely different rhythm, unidirectional and relentless, as seen from mid July 2007 ….
to late July. By September, I predict the stack and all industrial structure surrounding it will disappear.
Recent Comments