Here , here, and here were posts from the 2014 dry-docking.

In July 2020, she heads down to Staten Island for another dry-docking, partly to address issues other than in 2014.  The photo below captures an 0600 view.  Today’s post covers the first three hours of the next 24, as it makes its way down to the Staten Island shipyard.  Tug Sarah D (roughly 90′ x 29′ and rated at 2000hp) arrives.  It’s a spectacular morning.

The ship and museum are located near the “U-Haul truck on building” which you may see driving through Albany NY, and have no idea what lies below on the river.

By 0730, Nathan G (roughly 73′ x 24′ and 1200hp) has arrived, and both tugs and all three crews are ready to move;  a series of unheard commands, a burst of power, a foamy wake, a tensing of the towlines, a hint of expended fuel . . . and

 

away they go.  The wealth of spectators reported farther downriver is already evident here.    Does anyone have photos showing the crowds on the shore?  Please get in touch if you are willing to share photos showing this.

Sarah D rotates Slater 180 degrees to point her downstream toward the tank farms and grain silos of Port of Albany.  The dimensions on Slater are 306′ x 37.’  Her engines are “cosmetically maintained” and she has an operating generator.

By the time the tow passes the very Dutch place name of “Paarda Hook,” or Horse Point, it is already 0830, and we, aboard the warm and elegant Dutch Apple II,  turn back.

More tomorrow.  Here’s Slater‘s history.  Her namesake is Frank O. Slater, a USN seaman who died near the Solomon Islands during an attack on USS San Francisco in November 1942.  Here’s an extensive history.

A bit more detail I learned, and hopefully noted accurately,  aboard Dutch Apple II:  Slater is one of 479 destroyer escorts built that remained in the USN, 44 of which were named for seamen from New York state.  She’s the only one preserved in the US.  Her mission, with her 216 sailors, was to accompany the North Atlantic convoys, of which she performed five;  no vessels were lost to U-boats during those five crossings.  After four years in the USN, she was sold to the Greek Navy, where she served forty (!) years; hence many more Greek seamen served aboard her than US seamen.

The dazzle paint reproduces her appearance during WW2; it was intended to confuse U-boats of her type and direction so that any torpedoes fired would more likely miss their targets.  After the U-boats were equipped with acoustic (sound homing) torpedoes, she and other DEs would tow foxer (or FXR) cables  [aka Kreissäge (circular saw) or Rattelboje (rattle buoy)] to lead the torpedoes off course.

For more info on the museum, click here.  If you use Facebook, they are here.

To repeat, I’m interested in photos of the crowds along the river Sunday to greet the ship; I’m also interested in photos of Slater alongside Intrepid from 1993 until 1997 and the initial tow upriver in 1997.