I have lots more Gayer Barge Canal tugboat photos coming, but this set of photos had me puzzled until just now.
I’d seen the Merritt-Chapman & Scott crane barges Charleston and Concord with a tugboat in between. Focussing on trying to identify the tugboat as well as the location on the Barge Canal blinded me to the activity in the photos. I’ll give my interpretation later in the post, but first . . . tell me how you read the photos.
I love the lines on the small workboat Contest.
All undated photos by Albert Gayer.
First, I think the photos were taken on the Rondout, not the Barge Canal, but I don’t know where on the Rondout that quarry might be located.
Second, it appears that Charleston and Concord have just raised that tugboat from where it sank.
Alternative interpretations, especially if mine is wrong and yours is correct, are welcome.
tugster: a waterblog 
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January 27, 2022 at 12:10 pm
Josh Linenbroker
The photo of the Merritt Chapman Scott derrick was taken on the Rondout a few hundred feet south of where Feeney ship yard is currently. The quarry is the present location of the Feeney West yard across the creek from the main yard
January 27, 2022 at 12:21 pm
Daniel Meeter
That seems right to me. Pilot 1 is sitting right now to the right (upstream) of that spot, the wooded hill overlooking it.
January 27, 2022 at 12:31 pm
shaywp
These vintage photos are amazing! They are so vivid in color and clear.
January 27, 2022 at 1:25 pm
Anonymous
From the shape of the pilothouse, the tug may be a WW-II era U.S. Army ST class tug.
January 27, 2022 at 2:45 pm
William Lafferty
The tug appears to be an ST, so I think this is the salvage of the Callanan No. 1 that sank in Rondout Creek on 13 September 1958 when a Red Star barge alongside developed a fast leak and dumped its stone onto the tug. Merritt-Chapman & Scott dispatched the floating crane Cayuga and Concord to the site when local efforts to raise the tug proved fruitless, arriving 24 September 1958. The project was arduous, the Cayuga snapping its boom on 26 September 1958, and the Concord was sent to replace it. Finally, on the morning of 30 September 1958 the Charleston managed to raise the tug. It returned to service in mid-December. The Callanan No. 1 was built as the ST 524 for the army by Allen Boat Company, Harvey, Louisiana, hull number 85, in 1944. Callanan Road Improvement Co., Inc., of South Rondout purchased it in 1946. Callanan morphed into Callanan Marine Corporation in 1966 at Albany and the tug was sold to Eastern Seaboard Pile Driving Corporation, Hoboken, in 1978. It was reportedly half-sunk on the Hudson in the 1990s and was removed from documentation sometime before 1988.
January 27, 2022 at 4:39 pm
tugster
William– You amaze me. You have this right down to the day it was raised and the days that preceded it with their multiple mishaps. Thanks very much for this. W
January 29, 2022 at 8:54 am
jeff s
She ended up sunk in the Brandywine and was later cut up in situ.
January 27, 2022 at 4:34 pm
Mike
Holy crap, all these years of owning books by Paul C Morris and William Quinn with a multitude of pics of the MC&S fleet and it never occurred to me they were red-painted on the topside. Mind blown.
January 27, 2022 at 8:15 pm
Anonymous
That is an a 1940s army ST. I would agree about the raising as the lines from the crane barges certainly have a lot on them.