Whalebacks

Tony A sent these first three photos.  What are they?

Here’s the answer. I like the statement . .  the last one above water!  I wonder what else you can say that about.   Whalebacks have come and gone, except this one. Click here for a historical essay on whalebacks that makes an unexpected connection to Franklin D. Roosevelt. If your appetite is whetted, here’s another.   As the the connection between this style and x-bows, click here.

Click here to see El Cheapo’s 4-minute video on whalebacks, including one that served as a passenger vessel. 

Frisia Inn, which was in and out of the sixth boro a week or so ago,  is not a whaleback,

 

but the bow shares some design features.

It has the same bow as CSAV Rio de Janiero, Conrad S, and others.

Turtle back?

For a number of great vintage whaleback images, click here for portions of Neel R. Zoss‘ book, McDougall’s Great Lakes Whalebacks, including a whaleback automobile carrier called . . . South Park.

Many thanks to Tony for the actual whaleback photos.  For a good closing story on a whaleback whose remnants lie 400 feet below the surface of the GOM, click here.   That whaleback, SS City of Everett, would tow barges and its Captain Thomas Fenlon claimed it could have saved RMS Republic from sinking, offers to do so having been refused by the RMS Republic’s captain.