The two boats here–Grouper (1912) and Elisabeth (1925) –have nothing to do with each other, but they clearly illustrate two extremes of restoration.    Elisabeth lies starboardside to in Schiedam, whereas

same is true of Grouper in Lyons, New York.

Here’s another shot of

both.

Work on Elisabeth these days entails polishing and wiping down, but on

Grouper it means studying diagrams and

tracing lines and piping and

referring to typewritten instructions from

–who knows–a half century back.

But Grouper will get there.  I invite you to weigh in on the project.  Meanwhile . . .  from the many mouths of the Rhine, Fred sends his greetings and salutes the American readers.

A final two words about Elisabeth here:  first, she’s vying for Dutch tug/pushboat (opduwer) of the year . .  . to be named during the Netherlands National Tug Day, June 2, 2011.  I’m trying to learn how/if at all non-local readers might participate.  Second, here’s Elisabeth, foto taken yesterday, National Windmill (molen) Day. to mark the completion of reconstruction of the Camel, a malt/gin mill in  Schiedam originally built in 1715.

Unrelated:  Happy Seattle Maritime Festival this weekend.  Wish I were there.  I’d be happy to post any fotos from there.

More on all these projects and events soon.  Thanks to Alen and Angela Baker for the Grouper documents and to Fred Trooster for the Elisabeth fotos.