Here were post 1 and post 2 with this name, both focusing on WW2 torpedo boats. PT-728 used to be based on the Rondout in Kingston and would make visits to NYC’s sixth boro, but now you’d have to go to Lake Huron for an outing.
The vessel below is PT-305 and “diminished” version of itself spent from 1947 until 1988 in the sixth boro as Captain David Jones. Does anyone remember it? Have photos of it?
I say “diminished” because to bypass certain crewing requirements, four yards plus was chopped off the stern. Click here and scroll through to see a photo of this chopped hull and NYC paint scheme.
If you’ve never visited Nola, you have to; and if you visit Nola, the World War II museum–easy to get to–is a must-do. And in one of many buildings–the Kushner Restoration Pavilion–PT-309 is returning to its former glory. Parts have been rebuilt or returned from scrap heaps and river bottoms–like these exhaust ports salvaged from a wreck in a river in Connecticut.
The plan is for a return to the water, a possible trip all the way to Boston with a stopover in the sixth boro.
PT-305–like many torpedo boats–is a Higgins product, made right in New Orleans.
And before you go, read Jerry E. Strahan’s biography of the Andrew Jackson Higgins. Click here for a Richard Campanella Times Picayune article with photos on Higgins. Here’s an excerpt, showing Higgins’ methods when he needed to get fifty small boats built and shipped to the Navy in two weeks: ”
Low on steel, he “chartered a fleet of trucks and armed plant guards,” wrote Strahan, “to persuade [a Baton Rouge] consignee to release the metal to Higgins Industries.”
Requiring bronze shafting, he sent his men to raid a Texas depot and arranged for complicit Louisiana police to placate livid Texas law enforcement as his trucks crossed the state line heading back to New Orleans. Needing more steel, Higgins begged and borrowed from a Birmingham plant, then sweet-talked Southern Railway officials into bending the rules to deliver the metal to New Orleans. “Never before or since,” wrote Strahan, “has a Southern Railway passenger train pulled freight cars.”
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
tugster: a waterblog 
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December 14, 2014 at 5:30 pm
bayoubri
THINK EDISON CHOUEST IS DOING SOME INNOVATIVE STUFF IN DESIGN ?
BAYOU BRI IN BALTIMORE
December 15, 2014 at 6:23 am
Anonymous
There is a great PT museum in around Fall River MA
Wooden boat ran an article years ago (issue 56?) about Frank Pembrook Huckens that goes into the race for the PT contract with the navy during WWII between Higgins, Huckins & Elco. Very interesting read.
December 15, 2014 at 7:22 am
tugster
i will read that article, since the Strahan book talks about the conflict among the manufacturers and the Navy brass . . . and Higgins approach.
December 16, 2014 at 12:34 am
Seth Tane
And there’s a fully operational one here in Portland, OR that I’ve driven (and towed before it was running) in the Columbia river…earplugs required even at the open air on deck helm station and only two of the three original screamers running. But a heck of a lot of fun for the afternoon.
December 16, 2014 at 10:42 am
Charles Danko
I visited the Fall River MA museum years ago & really enjoyed talking to the old hands who were guides there. I grew up in Bayonne NJ where the ELCO boats were built & actually worked in the factory back in 1963-1964 when it belonged to Englander Matteress. The rails were still intact leading through the huge doors into Newark Bay. My father used to tell me about the measured mile ELCO had in the bay during WW II where the boats would do speed runs and everyone would come down to the parks and be entertained on a Sunday afternoon. After passing all the tests they’d be loaded on ships & bound for war. Always regretted not visiting the NOLA museum when i was down there in 2003.