Lettie Fundraiser 2

Here was the first post.  Today spring has sprung and may Lettie,

with such graceful toughness

delicate efficiency,

like a crocus,  burst forth.  Support the fundraiser.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

For updates on Marion M. and if you do FB, click here.   It updates this article:  Marion M. has been purchased and is undergoing restoration in the Chesapeake.

Here and here are some older Lettie posts.

Lettie Fundraiser

All the fotos I have of Lettie G. Howard were taken five or more years ago.    So why am I posting these now . . .  reposting some, in fact?  Here’s why:   April 8, 2013 Rosanne Cash will perform a gala concert to raise funds to restore Lettie, as she is affectionately known, which needs about $250,000 worth of repairs to repair rot and maintain her sailing integrity.   Rosanne Cash traces her family to an ancestor who arrived in Salem, MA in 1643 aboard Good Intent.   Click here for info on buying tickets.

Right now, Lettie is docked at Pier 17 cloaked in unflattering shrinkwrap.    Here’s some history of the unique vessel:

Built in 1893 at Essex, MA, in the yard of Arthur D. Story, Lettie G. Howard is named for the daughter of her first captain, Frederick Howard, Lettie fished out of Gloucester, MA, for her first eight years. In 1901, she was purchased by owners in Pensacola, FL, for use in the red snapper fishery off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. After surviving two major hurricanes, she was thoroughly rebuilt in 1923 by a new owner—Thomas Welles of Mystic, CT—who installed her first auxiliary engine and renamed her Mystic C. She continued to fish under sail for the Welles Company for 43 years, until it disbanded in 1966.   That year, she was sold to the Historic Ships Association in Gloucester, and in 1968 she was purchased by the year-old South Street Seaport Museum. She traveled from Gloucester to the Museum’s pier at South Street largely under sail. By then, she had been renamed twice, and her long working life had obscured her origins; research into her background led to a docking book that confirmed her identity as Lettie G. Howard.

Since 1968, Lettie has been a proud and beloved resident of South Street, where scores of fishing schooners like her used to dock to bring their catches to the Fulton Fish Market. She was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989, and between 1991 and 1993 she was completely restored to her 1893 appearance.   Lettie has operated as a certified sail training vessel since 1994, taking student crews on trips in New York Harbor and waters further afield—teaching history and ecology along with the skills and crafts of sailing, and celebrating the legacy of the North Atlantic fisheries and the Gloucester fleets.

Unrelated but this just in:  Former SSSM vessel Marion M has a vibrant new life ahead of her on the Chesapeake.  If you do facebook, check out these fotos!

Spring at South Street Seaport

A year ago I was pessimistic and wrote a bleak post and made this offer.  I have now officially passed some benjamins.   Last Saturday I went back to the South Street Seaport Museum and the new life excited me.  First, there’s this new blog, which I hope continues.  My friend John Watson, volunteer at the museum for decades and frequent contributor on tugster, has been responsible for many of the fotos.

Then, of course, volunteer spirit at SSSM has been irrepressible.  On Saturday February 18, over two dozen volunteers doing winter maintenance worked on or in four of the vessels at least.  A year of idleness has allowed rust to invade everywhere, rust that needs to be busted.

Hammers, chains, power grinders . . . whatever would combine with sweat to prep for rust inhibitor and ultimately new paint was pressed into service. I even set down my camera a few hours and assaulted some areas of rust, just because I enjoyed it.

Leaks were stopped, even if only with temporary fixes for now.

Hatches were sanded and painted.

It’s no simple cliche that rust never sleeps, and big projects like Wavertree require huge infusions of cash and effort to hold off the ravages of time.   But the spirit of volunteerism is also indispensible.This googlemap view shows where all the current museum vessels used to park.  Can you name them all?  Some may still go to better places.

Ambrose and Lettie G. Howard often docked in the open space here;  they are off-site for repair and refurbishing before they return.What really impressed me was inside Schermerhorn Row.  Floor 3 has “Super Models,”  ship replicas from the collection, smartly displayed.

It also has “Bottled Up,”  miniature vessels in glass.  And if you want to see how ships navigate the bottleneck, you can find a display on that too.

Contemporary hand tools are used rust-busting the ships outside, but Floor 4 has “Hand Held Devices,” an installation of scores of historic hand tools, some of

which you might not recognize, but

then there’s an interactive display that can

help with that too.

Floor 5 has “Coffee, Tea, Fish, and the Tattooed Man,” all

tributes to trades that once transacted just outside the building on the docks.

On the way back down, stop again on Floor 3 for a set of Edward Burtynsky‘s stunning fotos of shipbreaking in Bangladesh.

But don’t take my word for any of this. There’s more than I describe here.  And more to come . . . like the re-opening of some form of research library . . . .   Become a member.  Come and visit.  Stop by and bust rust.   The barge name here describes what’s happening at the Museum.

South Street Seaport is once again

alive!  My fotos don’t really do it justice.  Bravo to all who made this happen.

Irene Chases Vessels

If you’re not familiar with AIS, click here.  Play with this tracking software.  Remember that not all vessels . . . especially smaller ones . . . use AIS.

Here are screen shots I’ve taken today.  Doubleclick enlarges. In this snapshot from 11 am Saturday, notice the large passenger and cargo vessels like Explorer of the Seas and APL Sardonyx in port here.

By 530 pm, a line of tugs (and likely barges) had  moved up to safer anchorage between the George Washington and the Tappan Zee Bridges.  So had New Jersey Responder.

A line of passenger and cargo vessels had headed for sea by 530 pm.

By 10:30 pm, this set of tugs (and barges) and yachts had moved even farther north . . . between Tappan Zee and Poughkeepsie bridges.

Furthermore, Pioneer, Lettie G. Howard, and W. O. Decker (none of which have AIS) had also moved north from the sixth boro to Kingston.

As I was told 21 years ago in the most precarious time of my life,  good night and good luck to all the vessels .

Tale of Two Hulls 2

I first used this title a bit over two years ago in relation to two museum vessels whose status is currently challenged.  Click here for a new blog dedicated to saving the fleet languishing at South Street Seaport;  May Day’s not been transmitted there yet.

High and dry,

per plan . . . and  a future versus

one arrived here by accident and now like a fish out of water.

Urger gets floated this year with a new captain.  Type Urger in the search window to see the dozen or so stories I’ve done on her, of which my favorite is probably this.

Can anyone speak from fact about a future for Le Papillon?

Urger has to be the most beautiful 110 year-old I know!

All fotos were taken last weekend . . .  Fotos of Le Papillon by Capt. Justin Zizes, Jr. and Urger  by Will Van Dorp . .  up in Lyons, NY.

Unrelated:  Another fantastic video of Rotterdam harbor by Fred Vloo.

South Street Ex-port 2

Just a quick update:  I’ve heard from 11 people–some on email–willing to put up some money.  I intended this as pledging a la Public Radio/Television.  I had imagined that once a sizeable amount of money was pledged and a goal for the money was agreed upon, we could collect the money.  May Day–the seasonal one–arrives soon.  The dire one I hope never arrives.  To fuel the discussion, I’m putting up fotos never before (I think) never posted here.  Like Peking,

Lettie,

Helen and Marion, Pioneer without the orange raft,

Adam flaking,

schooners side by side,

Wavertree,

more Peking at Caddell’s,

and Decker.

Ambrose soon.  All fotos by will Van Dorp.

South Street Ex-port

I’m offering to give away a Benjamin Franklin, or a half dozen.  And I’ll do it before May Day!!   See the end of the post.

The foto below–never posted here before–comes from 2005 and shows “the schooners,”  a handsome Pioneer (1885) and elegant Lettie G. Howard (1893), 244 years of sailing between them.    On a personal note, I logged in over 600 hours as a volunteer on these two boats as well as on W. O. Decker between 2004–2006.  That means winter maintenance as well as summer sailing.

Such nautical treasures are these vessels (left to right:  Marion M, Wavertree, W. O. Decker, and Peking) and so many fine folks, volunteers as well as professional crew, did I meet during this time . .  that

current developments at that place created as South Street Seaport break my heart and then make me angry.

When word on the street says Museum administration is looking to  ”send its working ships to ports elsewhere for long-term storage” and otherwise declining comment on the crumbling state of affairs, I hope to hear that these same administrators abdicate their positions.  These vessels are no white elephants.  These are no “floating paperweights.”

During my years as an active volunteer, I knew this place could be much more than a red barn with seven masts sticking up above it.

Conditions of giving away my Benjamins:  current Museum president Mary Pelzer resign effective immediately and  a committee focused on the vessels be installed forthwith.  And, I’d like 1000 people (former volunteers, boat fans, former professional crew members, just plain fans of these vessels, or friends and friends of friends of any of the above)  to pledge at least a Benjamin each to be deposited with a trustworthy  and maricentric steward by May 1, 2011.   This could be the “seaport spring.”  Let’s not let this go to May Day.

See the selection below from yesterday’s New York Post.   Here’s info on a “Save our Ships” meeting for April 28.   All fotos above by Will Van Dorp.

“Abandoning ships: City’s old vessels lost in fog of debt, neglect,” New York Post, April 25. “Rotting wood covers their decks, their masts are flaked with rust, and their hulls are corroding. New York’s last tall ships — once-proud symbols of the Big Apple’s rise to greatness — are in a shameful state of disrepair as the museum that’s supposed to care for them sinks in a Bermuda Triangle of debt and bad management. Seaport Museum New York has closed its landside galleries and is looking to send its working ships to ports elsewhere for long-term storage. The museum’s stationary ships — Peking, one of the biggest sailing ships ever built, Wavertree, a three-masted cargo ship, and Ambrose, a lightship that a century ago guided sailors into New York harbor — face an unknown fate. ‘Those ships, which are emblematic of our heritage on the waterfront, are almost being left to rot,’ said Roland Lewis, president of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, a coalition of nonprofit groups. . . . The museum declined comment, except to say it is ‘exploring various options’ to maintain its vessels.”

Other People’s Fotos 5

Boro6 aka the sixth boro or New York harbor sees diverse vessels and and floats in and out staggering amounts of cargo.  I’m thrilled by the amount of collaboration this blog can muster.  Many eyes see more things.  Like Princess Danae, captured last week by John Watson.  Princess Danae has long since departed, but John pointed out a secret.  Any ideas?

The vessel is operated today by Classic International Cruises.  For scale, compare her beside Norwegian Jewel.  The secret?  Princess Danae began life in 1955 as Port Melbourne, a tanker general cargo vessel!  (Thanks for catching that, Bart!)

A first time foto from Capt. G. Justin Zizes, Jr.   . .  . it’s Maryland.  Welcome, Justin.

I’m putting the next two fotos here because I wonder if anyone can tell me what type of barge this is . . . long and narrow, towed  on a single diagonal line by

Thomas J Brown.  This is my second time to see Brown towing this barge.

A darker story awaiting enlightening here . . . the inimitable Elizabeth Wood took this foto some five or so years back.  It’s Lettie G Howard, dormant and in bondage for many months now, and for sale;  part of the sad dissolution

and crumbling happening at the museum formerly known as South Street Seaport.  Until a new plan for the ships (See these stories by  MWA, Old Salt,  and Frogma.)   even Pioneer will remained fettered.  SOS indeed, or given the age of Lettie G and Pioneer . . . should we make that CQD?   CQD!!    The MWA link has a tribute to Bernie also.

Thanks to John, Justin, and Elizabeth for these fotos and the collaboration.  The ones of Thomas J Brown and Pioneer by Will Van Dorp.   Type any of these vessel names (except Princess Danae) and you’ll get many previous appearances.  And, doubleclick enlarges most.

Autumn Sail 5

Late summer sail might look like this, Clipper City motorsailing up the Buttermilk Channel past Caribbean Princess, and early autumn

sail like this: Gazela showing the flag in Oyster Bay.  The town dock here is roughly located in the former Jakobson yard, and that’s Growler and the Jakobson-built Deborah Quinn (1957, ex-W. R. Coe, Karen Tibbets, Ethel Tibbets)   across from Gazela.   W. R. Coe’s first work was for the Virginian Railroad.

Early autumn sailing can also look like this:  Breck Marshall‘s skipper standing while making her play in the wind.

Or this:  a heeled over Escape Plan.

or this: 1929 Summerwind playing a bit before headed for the Chesapeake Schooner race last month.

while on that same day Lettie G. Howard comes out of slumber to mingle with the likes of this

varnished catboat-with-a-blog named Silent Maid.

Getting later into autumn can mean mild weather and bright light over this aptly-named vessel–Persephone . . . preparing to head for the underworld or –at least–the southern approach to northern winter.

Or it can look like this:  skipper Richard Hudson beginning winter preparations as Issuma heads in the direction of its port of registry . . .  the Yukon.

More Issuma soon.

For now, as you make your own preparations for winter, check out this new Thad Koza 2011 Tall Ship calendar featuring a sixth-boro based schooner . . . . Any guesses?

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Figureheads 3

Almost two years ago I posted this.  Here’s a new installment.  Truth be told, though, a better title for this set of fotos would be head ornamentation.

Pioneer here shows a novel approach to jibboom installation:  grow one.  If this tree were alive and rooted somewhere in the chain locker, maybe in spring . . . you think?

Moshulu sports complex painted  scrollwork.

Most of Unicorn hid beneath blue tarp when I saw her in Gloucester, but the figurehead gave it all away.  What I did not realize at the time was that Unicorn began her life as a Dutch motor trawler.

Barkentine Gazela Primeiro began her life in Portugal and carried dory fishermen to the Grand Banks.

Lettie G. Howard has a modest eagle’s head and gilded sinuous incisions.

Flying Jib has even more modest and

functional incisions.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, now in search of new head ornamentation.  Not for myself of course.

By the way, the Christmas morning activity that occupied me the last two years . . . it won’t be happening this year.  Merry Christmas anyhow, or –as my mother would say–prettige kerstfeest.

Which reminds me . . . if this were a warm holiday, I’d love to see a repeat of the muziekbootje, on their youtube here and in my fotos here.

Two figurehead posts from Rick at old salt blog:  an “indecent” figurehead story from Libya and a greeting.