Sailing Cargo

Is it a vestige of a past whose

artifacts are mostly

disappearing?  Or

is it an enterprise of

what is

to come?

Read how the Danes and Dutch already do it.  These Dutch from Tres Hombres wanted to sail into the sixth boro last year but were stymied by red tape.   Then there’s the Vermont working sailcraft project discussed here.  Andrew Wilner has more examples in his blog here.   Here’s a veritable bibliography of hybrid sail ideas.

Working Harbor Committee presents a panel discussion of this topic tonight from 6 pm — 9 pm in Manhattan.    Click here for details.

All fotos here by Will Van Dorp.  The disintegrating sailboat fotos were taken near Bear Mountain last weekend, and the Black Seal three-masted schooner fotos date from when it delivered 20 tons of cocoa beans to Red Hook in June 2011.   Here and here are related blog posts I did back then.

 

Meanwhile Upriver April 2013

Click here for an ice post from two years and two months ago, featuring the very same tug–Kimberly Poling–with a slightly different paint job.  Know this bridge?

Here’s a closer up shot of the tug/barge.   Our destination is the top of the cliff on the far side.  Know the name?

Here’s looking north from below the bridge.  Freight travels on the west side of the Hudson, although this particular CSX train

happened to be pulling this unit . . . CSX SWAT.  Click on the blue info link at the lower left of that link . . . it is what it sounds like.

The east side of the river has AmTrak and commuter passenger lines and

here a New York Naval Militia vessel.

By the time we’re ready to start the serious climb, Kimberly is about ready to make the right turn around the base of Dunderberg Mountain.

Here’s our destination, Anthony’s Nose, as seen with a long lens.

And as seen from the top looking west and

looking south.  By the time, we got up there, Kimberly was already beyond Croton Point.   Here’s a previous tugster post from Croton Point.  The land directly across the river from the base of the flagpole is Iona Island.

and approaching Tappan Zee Bridge, not visible.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Here’s a tugster post from 2.5 years ago showing the Bear Mountain Bridge–the bridge featured here and located about 40 miles north of the Battery– from underneath. . .  scroll through.  Climb Anthony’s Nose soon . . . before the leaves happen.

Play Boats 2

Here was the first “play boats.”

What’s this?

For some to entice us to play, it takes a 1935 85′ Mathis Trumpy named

—what else–

Enticer.  Exactly a year ago, I posted about a 1926 Trumpy Mathis named Freedom.

For others it takes teeth and arms . . . even if faux.   If you live along the Erie Canal, keep a watch since PT 728 will soon be moving over to Lake Erie.

And still others of us need to fish, as from a C-Dory like this.

Then there are Feadships like Utopia II.

Or there’s the plaything of Roman Abramovitch, the

vessel with the luxury tender, Luna!

What’s this red unit, plaything of tides, currents, and winds?  More later.

And very near many of these playboats, a banded bird that plays with prey. To see more eagles along the Hudson and other birds, click here.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Colours

“Blue is the colour of the sky . . .”  in the Donovan song of almost a half century ago, but this isn’t a post about foliage, although I took this foto Friday . . . if you’re wondering why I didn’t post.  Guess the location?

Brown is the color of the Hudson, yesterday, as seen high above crane barge Columbia (and Sarah Ann??) viewed from Storm King, about 60 miles north of the sixth boro.

Brown flows under Margot and Benjamin Eliott at Waterford about a hundred miles north of Storm King.

It has been the color of the Hudson and feeders streams since the visitation of Irene (note the high point on the Second Street Bridge) and the rest of the rainy season in the Hudson and other Northeast watersheds.

But go another 70 or so miles north of Waterford, not far from the headwaters of the Hudson (as far north from the sixth boro as Washington DC is south!!) and the

waters through the rock

are clear, not cafe au “way too much” lait.

Twas a good place to get away and

reconnect.  Hiking here . . . offers no clue of what cliffs lie downstream.

I know I missed the arrival of tugs Justice and Reinauer Twins and who knows whatever else     . . . come through the boro, but gallivants can’t and shouldn’t be postponed.

Fotos by Will Van Dorp.   More Donovan?

And speaking of colors from inks and pigments as multi-hued as nature up north, check this out from my favorite niche-leaping, river-crossing, shipshifting cliff-dweller . . .  and so much more.

For explanations on all manner of color, checkin with seaandsky.

Waters

Last Friday I rubbed my eyes after seeing a “shadow” on a section of the KVK.  Results of dredging, I wondered?  An issue of oil?  Problems in my perception?  Some time later, I looked back and  the color differentiation of waters

had moved.  That recalled this scene  back in June . . . a v-shaped force that swung large ships, each in the same direction as it was engulfed.

And back to Friday, here’s how the water streaks evolved.  It must be fresh river waters . . .  with their silt load, I then concluded.  Click here for Vlad’s post commenting on the same phenomenon.  And Fred tug44 sent these fotos from Waterford . . .  And this pic (by Patrick Dodson) of khaki waters overwhelming Lock 8 in Rotterdam.

So I decided on a gallivant up to see where this water painting the sixth boro came from.  Note the Hudson Light in the distance left.  (Doubleclick enlarges.)  Here’s the marina in Hudson, NY, with mud

stains showing the ramp and half the parking lot had been inundated.

As was the case in Catskill Creek, given debris and docks askew there.

Along the Hudson, here’s a clue to water level along the waterfront in Athens.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.   Alas, clean-up and reconstruction will last longer than the silt coloration in the sixth boro.  Click here and here for some of the last fotos I took up in that stretch of the River, almost a year ago.

Holy Grail Icy Sail

This holy grail of sail is the Van Nostrand Cup, crafted by Tiffany in 1888 at the behest of  Gardiner Van Nostrand, ”held since 1891 by the North Shrewsbury Ice Boat and Yacht Club,” put up for competiton only once (1978)  since then.     Getting it back is tricky.  Races can only happen when waters are frozen;  you need good ice, though, not just any ice.  You need wind but not too much.  Last Saturday winds gusted to 50 mph, and then Sunday . . . in spite of this beautiful ice … puffs happened only sporadically.   And with good wind, how fast can they go?  Answer follows.

John Vargo, here with a formidable hat made of skins of two Great Plains coyotes, talks about the sport as

over on the far side of this lake (which I will refer to as Lake Shangri-la . . . located somewhere between the sixth boro and the St. Lawrence) two old stern-steerers race.  If you haven’t seen bowsprite’s  video of the last run of Galatea from February 2010, click here.

A little over 100 years ago, ice boats like these were THE fastest vehicle on earth!  This youtube video from the 1930s touts the fact that a Chevy can outrun an iceboat, an appeal that seems quite bizarre today.

To me, these vessels seem too beautiful and delicate to be so fast.

Varnish, polished brass, marlinespike are all lovingly cared for on Ariel.

Genevieve is a beauty returned recently from Wisconsin

by Brett, whose passion for iceboats was quite evident.  This type of passion and

obsession one who blogs incessantly of water can easily empathize with.  Wonder why the nameboard looks so untraditional?

Genevieve was built not far from a certain temple of baseball in the Bronx.     Here’s a list of vessels built there, but there’s no mention of their iceboating endeavors.    While we’re on NYYL&E history, check out their Bronx-built Linmar and  Olympus.  Another long-gone Morris Heights-based builder built lightships.

A two-person crew pushes off in light wind  before lying in the basket.

Genevieve’s bigger basket accommodates more crew, more pushers.

Waiting for the wind here from near to far:  Ice Queen, Whirlwind, and Ariel.

Lake Shangri-la beckons; when the wind blows, these boats are eager to bring the Grail back to New York ice.  All fotos by Will Van Dorp, who’s grateful for the hospitality.

For a wide variety of European iceboat images and links, click here.

Ice boat speed records:  Debutaunte . . . 143 mph?    Miss Wisconsin . . .   200 . ..  has it been clocked?

Check out John Vargo’s Boating on the Hudson FaceBook page here.

Names 13

Baidarka . . . an intriguing name for a ketch . . . docked in Waterford, New York and headed home!!  Keep your eyes peeled for them soon in the sixth boro.

Can you guess the name of this tug with Halloween decoration in the wheelhouse?  Answer follows.

So they do . . .  as do poltergeists, especially in the Hudson Valley.  This is in the tributary of Catskill Creek.

Any wagers on the name of this old wooden yacht, overgrown in a marina across from Dunderberg Mountain?

I really wanted to add a preposition “of” between the top and middle lines here.

Atlantic Salvor . . .  here with a scow in the KVK, lines and name make my heart beat faster.

Deborah Quinn waits at the old Jakobson yard in Oyster Bay.  I’ve never seen her in the sixth boro.

Canvasback lies in Mystic . . . seeing and being seen among the beauties at Mystic, as is

true of Sinbad VI.

So, those spiderwebs . . .  were in the house of hard-to-read  The Chancellor, on the wall in Waterford last weekend.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Issuma’s Tow

Issuma has traveled off four continents in the past two years:  Europe, Africa, South America, and North America.  In the past year alone, Issuma‘s landfalls have included Argentina and Nunavut.  Yet, Issuma‘s skipper Richard Hudson has logged hundreds of hours sailing in the sixth boro, as well.  His tow, the vessel slinging here on the towline–for sale–is none other than the charming Rosemary Ruth.

Issuma is Richard’s third schooner.  See all the stories from Issuma back to Orbit II (which now lies thousands of feet below the surface of the North Atlantic between Iceland and Ireland)  here.

Here Richard and Gabriela pose in front of the two schooners at anchor off Thomas Cole-base, Catskill.

Issuma–unstepped mast lying cabintop–by now might be off farther north and west, headed for Toronto before winter closes the Erie Canal.  The tow will be left behind in Catskill, awaiting a new owner.

Here Richard and Bowsprite return from a sounding trip up Catskill Creek.

More fotos of the trip up the Hudson Valley coming soon.  As an aside, with a vista like this, I find it credible that Henry Hudson, making this trip 401 years ago, could have believed this waterway would lead through the continent.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.  If you are interested in Rosemary Ruth, contact Richard today.

Related:  Rosemary Ruth IS a signed piece of art.  See the weld signature here.

Second Lives 8

The last one was seven, so … for number eight, I bring back this version of a foto from two years ago.  June K was the essential orange in the sixth boro;  nothing was more orange than June K, but

it’s 2010, not 2008, and it seems the answer is Punxsutawney Phil and Staten Island Chuck might say more than yes or no, and  ”Yes a leopard can change its spots.”  And it’s year of the tiger and the tiger might

just strip off its stripes.

A blue June K!   And that’s in transition  to Sarah Ann.    I know it’s frivolous, but I liked the orange on this product of Amelia, Louisiana.

While I adjust to that, check out these fotos of  Hackensack (inland from Petersburg) in March 2009 and

in the same location–although imprisoned in ice–in January 2010.

Change is good.  viva transformation . . . although I’m still going to have a hard time feeling the same about a blue June K.

Blue June K fotos … many thanks to Jed.  All others by Will Van Dorp.

Winter Blues

Update:  For evidence of serious (ha!!) impromptu conferencing among some waterbloggers on Friday night, check out Peconic Puffin here.

Cold winds and spray trigger a hibernation reflex in me . . .  especially when the day is gray and

ice encases everything like the manifold here on Maersk Bristol.

But there is a beauty, too, particularly

on sunny days like the one when Pacific Fighter headed south not from below Albany through the crystalline Hudson.

More shades of blue:  Meagan Ann

Emma Miller,

Department of Sanitation scow 170 . . . here schlepped by the versatile James Turecamo,

and finally this all-blue unit called

Kenny G.  By the way, does anyone have identification on Kenny G?  I find nothing in my usual indexes.  Come summer, we might miss the blues.  Or blueblues.

Credits:  renowed ship/tugboat photographer Jed for the first three, a bird blogger (Richard Guthrie)  from the Albany Times-Union for  Pacific Fighter, and the rest by Will Van Dorp.  More Kenny G–the sax player–although there’s a lot of water with it.)   here.  Actually, while on the blues, here’s a fun,  bittersweet (blue-gray-crazy)  love song with water references from (?) late 1960s, shared by someone with a birthday today.

Happy end-of-January.