Hats off to Glenn Raymo for figuring out where to be to catch this tow at first light.
I know it’s fruitless to wonder whether any archive has photos of any previous trip Ward’s Island made on the Hudson. The only other trip it’s made may have been northbound in the late 1930s.
Hats off to the crews who can do this safely. With the rounded bottom propped up by welded on support beams,
she looks like an animal once living.
Dimensions of the hull are 115’6″ x 38′ x 14′.
It’s a job and it’s a melancholy sight too., knowing the next stop on this express route is the bottom of the ocean off Fire Island.
Many thanks to Glenn for catching this. Previous “canal reef express” posts can be found here.
tugster: a waterblog 
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July 24, 2018 at 11:24 am
Lee Rust
The flooding ports are already cut in the bottom. Such a quick transformation from historically unique workboat to almost sunken object in just a week or so. Next?
Another link between upstate and downstate! Soon we’ll be sending upstate electricity down to the big city via the repurposed canal bed.
Adjusting our priorities. Moving objects is old-fashioned. Moving electrons is where the future lies.
July 24, 2018 at 11:27 am
tugster
Thx, Lee. And since you didn’t include this article, I’ll add it here: https://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2016/04/proposed_underwater_cable_in_erie_canal_would_send_upstate_electricity_to_nyc.html
Now would these cables be alongside or on or below the bottom? Where would they be at a lock?
July 24, 2018 at 2:56 pm
Lee Rust
Judging from the illustrations in that 2016 article, the power cables would be laid directly in the center of the canal bottom and buried in the sediment within narrow channels sliced by water jets. I assume the cables would emerge for routing around locks, dams and gates.
From the perspective of the NYS Power Authority, I can’t think of a quicker and cheaper way to quickly lay down hundreds of miles of cable without years of political and public objection, right-of-way negotiations and public domain condemnations. The hope might be that installation could be so swift as to be completed before any organized public opposition were even mobilized.
Other advantages: Direct route from the power-rich Niagara region to the power-hungry NY metro area… High efficiency direct-current (DC) electrical transmission with expensive infrastructure and maintenance concentrated in the AC/DC inverter stations at each end of the line… Initial investment by a private Canadian corporation with limited NYS public funding… Low-resistance buried copper conductors instead of the inefficient lightweight aluminum needed for overhead wires, and no transmission line towers to build and maintain… Increased current capacity because of the cooling presence of water… Minimal trenching costs in soft, obstruction-free muck… If you’re the Power Authority, what’s there not to like?
As far as the State is concerned, the limited seasonal need for recreational and commercial navigation in an obsolete waterway would be far outweighed by the steadily increasing demands of the downstate energy market. Certainly there could still be passage through the Canal by shallow-draft watercraft, but I might guess that the official design depth would decrease to about 8 feet with the transmission cables laid at the original design depth of 12 feet. In many parts of the Canal, the channel depth is already around 8 feet due to many years of deferred dredging. Could it be that this maintenance neglect was by design? I’m sure the power distribution engineers have had their eye on the Canal right-of-way for at least a decade or two.
No doubt the Power Authority will make some effort to maintain the old Canal infrastructure as long as practical, but the lock machinery and most of the masonry works are now over 100 years old. At some not-so-distant time when these elements are deemed unrepairable, the locks and gates might be entirely removed and the Erie would be no more… just a long ditch and a couple of rivers with wires running along the bottom.
For those of us who appreciate the Erie Canal this is certainly a very gloomy vision, but remember that it was market demands that gave us the Erie in the first place, and market demands could possibly take it away. Personally, I think there will be an important place for canal transportation in an oil-starved future, but we’re not quite there yet and most politicians and corporations don’t like to think that far ahead.
For whatever reasons, if we want the Canal, even if reduced in depth, to remain a viable and useful waterway throughout the next century and beyond, we will all have to make our opinions known to the power authorities that be.
July 26, 2018 at 4:16 pm
ws
What ever happened to conservation, Negawatts!
-There is a proposal by Mitsubishi to build a 1,200 Mwe power plant in
North Bergen, NJ with all the power going directly into Manhattan via another underwater cable..
-The 660 Mwe Hudson Project’s underwater cable is already furnishings 660 Mwe power to Manhattan…
-Con Edison is a Pipes and wires company less and less electrical production
http://hudsonproject.com/project/
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/environment/2018/04/10/new-power-plant-meadowlands-electricity-nyc/503255002/
July 26, 2018 at 4:26 pm
ws
Ferry Boat Wards Island, nice axial symmetry no shear profile, Once a passenger Ferry, then a Crane Platform on the Erie Canal, now an artificial reef benefiting local marine life.. You Keep on Going Wards Island!