Second Lives 29

Check out the sailboat.

But look closer.  Thanks to George Schneider:  “She’s sitting abandoned at Larose LA along Bayou LaFourche.  I took the shoreside photo on 8 October 2013, the cross-bayou photo 16 July 2012.  When I saw her, the only name visible was OLD COURAGE in lettering on her wheelhouse window.  Being undocumented since Moran disposed of her, there’s no “official” name for her, so I’ve used that for her present identity.

Local rumor had it that a man had intended to make a charter sailing boat out of her.  The exterior is essentially complete, although crude and problematic.  Local lore says his son killed him for spending all “his inheritance” on this project, but I’ve heard that same story for other unsailable vessels down in those parts.

Below decks there are two coves with wooden bunks, but not much else, and the engine room is mostly just gutted and, of course, awash with rain water and jungle by-products.

One can see hints of the lettering of her name around the stern where the new plating has been cut away, but not enough to make sense of it, hence another trip’s expedition inside.  This time I brought some snake gear with me to board her, and found her official number on an engine room bulkhead.  I didn’t even try to sanitize my clothes after that expedition, since I didn’t have room to pack them anyway.  I first saw her there in 2004, and last saw her in 2013.  She  still shows up  in 2019 satellite imagery.”

She’s 103′ x 26′ and built in Port Richmond NY in 1926 as tugboat New York Central #33.

The next two images are credited to Paul Strubeck, and will appear in his book, which I’ll surely tell you about when it’s available.

Going on with Paul’s info:  New York Central sold her to Moran Towing in 1945 and renamed Thomas E. Moran.  She was repowered with a Cleveland 12-278A diesel electric drive.   Around 1980 she was sold and converted to a three-masted schooner to enter the charter trade . . . until she ended up along this creek.

A more successful conversion of tugboat-to-schooner is Empire Sandy, photo here I took in the Welland Canal in August 2018.  Here are some photos from before her conversion.  Empire Sandy does tours mostly out of Toronto.

Many thanks to George and Paul for these photos and this information.