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A decade ago I rode Condor and saw close up the start of the 23rd running of the great! Chesapeake Schooner race. Covid intervened for a few years and actually changed the format; now there’s a Bay Race, which begins today, and a virtual race, fund raiser.
In 2012, the starting boat also raised its tugantine sails after all the schooners had passed /checked in at the starting line.
There were too boats many to reprise here, but A. J. Meerwald sailed, as
did Lady Maryland. She and Meerwald appeared on this blog way back in 2007 on a foggy summer day.
The Colvin design is evident with Cuchulain. Here’s more on Thomas E. Colvin.
Virginia and Pride of Baltimore II run side by side before the race.
Liberty Clipper and a yawl I’ve never managed to identify pass. I never realized until now that Liberty Clipper was Blount built.
Sultana is a replica of a pre-Revolutionary War topsail schooner.
Summerwind is no replica; she’s 1929 Thomaston ME built for a banker just before the October 1929 Crash.
Before raising their own sails, the crew of the tugantine shares a libation with the old man of the sea bay.
Then it was tugantine tanbark sails raised and off they scudded to the south end of the Bay.
All photos, WVD, who would love to reprise this race in 2023 . . .
Enjoy this sampling of boats and the dates associated with their launch starting from Arabian Sea (2007) on Dry Dock No. 7,
Stephen Reinauer (1970) nearby on 4,
Miss Circle Line . . . (1954 as ST 2124 and later Betsy) ,
Alex McAllister (1985),
Joyce D. Brown (2002) headed home after completing the daily chores,
Crystal Coast (1983) and Justin (1981) heading south into the Chesapeake,
JRT Moran (2016) holding onto an argosy,
Ivory Coast (1967) waiting on the next job,
All photos by Will Van Dorp (1952).
Unrelated, for a long interpretation of Moby Dick (1851) and connections between “grammar school literature” like the Odyssea (est. 1000 BCE) and All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) and connections with folk songs, listen to Bob Dylan (1941) making his Nobel Prize acceptance speech (2017) here . . . It’s the best 27 minutes of listening you’ll do today, I believe.
It’s been a long time since I first used this title and here was 2 in the series. I’ve been to Baltimore since but not to Fells Point, although I plan to remedy that before summer.
And there is a change: See the old City Pier building . . it has very recently reopened as Sagamore Pendry Hotel.
Many thanks to Allen Baker for all these photos.
Here’s more about the 1914 building transformed by UnderArmor money.
And I’ve no photos yet of the new Baltimore water taxis built mostly in Baltimore using a Chesapeake Bay deadrise design. And I’m hoping that this photo, with its exquisite shadows, means the Domino Sugars plant still operates.
All photos by Allen Baker.
If you don’t recognize the name “kiptopeke,” I’ll just say this is not the Arthur Kill or Nouadhibou or Alang . . .
Note the pelican/gull segregation . . .
Guesses?
The bridge in the background might be a clue. There was once a time that you needed a ferry to cross between Norfolk and the southern Delmarva peninsula, and these wrecks protected the landing at Kiptopeke Beach.
Nine wrecks mostly end to end lie off the Virginia beach disintegrating.
For much better close ups, see this link.
For much more info and additional photos, including one of a ferry passing through the opening between the wrecks, click here.
Congratulations to William Lafferty for identifying the location from the photo in my old/new year’s post.
I’m going to add Kiptopeke’s concrete ships to the list of places I need to revisit in warmer weather and with a small boat. Better yet, this spot is begging for drone photography.
For many more “port of ” tugster posts, click here. And if you could do a photo profile of a place I’ve not visited, please get in touch.
She started out as S. O. Co. No. 14 from a shipyard not far from her current Penn’s Landing berth and worked for almost 80 years. For more on that story, read this article from the historiccamdencounty.com.
The next two photos are credited to Bonnie Halda, who took them last week.
Baltimore, completed in 1906, was built at the same yard as Pegasus, 1907.
Except for the two credited to Bonnie Halda, all photos were taken by Will Van Dorp. For a post with more photos of these old-timers and others, click here.
For an even older and much modified one, click here for a post I did on Charlotte, built in 1880 as a sandbagger. Click here for info on Swell, a repurposed 1912 tug operating in British Columbia.
I’m thrilled to discover entirely new stories, like this one, which I found after following up some info I’d seen on a historical marker sign in Bath, NC, a month ago. Click here and scroll to see the historical marker. I saw it briefly in the headlights but took no photos.
When I googled “floating theater bath nc,” I learned a book had been written about this barge and immediately ordered a copy of the book, where I got the stories, including the one about “G-string” shows, which I’ll explain at the end of this post. I guarantee you’ll be surprised. Click here for some details about Prof. Gillespie’s process in writing the book.
James Adams used two tugs–Elk and Trouper— to move the “floating theater” from town to town in the Chesapeake and the estuarial fingers of North Carolina back in the days when movie theaters and certainly mass entertainment penetrated into all the hamlets and backwaters of this portion of the US.
Although I’d never heard of this entertainment in the backwaters where I was born, it’s fairly well covered with blogposts like this and newspaper articles like this. The Chesapeake Log has done a story. In fact, there’s a group that wishes to recreate the barge.
Needless to say, any project on the water always faces this danger from its element, among other perils.
November 1929
Between venues, Elk and Trouper would tow the barge, like horses moving the old time traveling carnival to the next town.
Now about “G-string” shows . . . From page 63 of the book, “there were three primary comic characters in the repertoire theater . . .[one was the G-string character], an old man, the geezer. He was evolved from the 19th century comic Yankee character, sometimes with a dose of the frontiersman thrown in. … squeaky male voice and a goatee-like beard. The cartoon Uncle Sam is a G-string character.” I’ve looked online for other references to this meaning of G-string . . . with no corroboration.
Who knew? Edna Ferber and her Showboat . . . which I don’t know well . . . I thought that was based on Mississippi traffic. The sixth boro and the Hudson have their very own Lehigh Valley 79 Showboat Barge as in here, here, and here. There was once the floating entertainments of Periwinkle and Driftwood . . . now all gone.And the whole eastern seaboard has Amara Zee . . . (scroll) Caravan Stage Company.
I think it’s high time Edna Ferber’s story gets reinterpreted as a movie, this time including Elk and Trouper.
This is GHP&W 9, and since this unexpected trip to new ports has materialized, here we are. Passing through Thimble Shoals Channel looking toward the Delmarva peninsula . . . it’s hard to capture the expanse of this bridge/tunnel. But once inside, vessels to behold through the sudden rain include
a noisy LCAC,
a historically-named fishing boat,
a Stiletto,
and a landing craft. Is that a pelican-shaped drone flying escort?
Although we passed through Hampton Roads, the rain grayed out any sign of shore, where I’d been ashore four years ago. Gold Coast was pushing a covered barge with
seagull lookouts.
Spring Scenery left a lot to the imagination.
But the fleet lining the Norfolk shore was fabulous starting with USNS Lewis B Puller,
possibly about to get a push from Tracy Moran, and
USNS Supply,
and Robert E. Perry.
And much more, but for this post, we stop here. All photos here by Will Van Dorp.
The first photos here comes from John Jedrlinic, who took the one immediately below in Norfolk in August. So far as I know, Julie Anne has not yet seen the sixth boro.
I’m also not sure A. J. McAllister has seen the sixth boro. Believe it or not, A. J. dates from 2003, built in Panama City, FL. Jed snapped this shot as she passed USS Bulkely. Unknowable from the Oct. 16, 2015 photo, the tight light on A. J. was attached to bulker New Spirit.
Can you guess this one?
It’s a nicely tidied up Quenames, New England bound.
Charles A has been in the harbor since at least this summer.
Coming in out of the rising sun, it’s Marie J. Turecamo and Kirby Moran.
And headed in that direction, it’s Elizabeth McAllister.
Now let’s size down . . . Robbins Reef is 42.4 ‘ loa,
Helen Paker is 39′,
and Ava Jude is 25′ . . .
This last photo I can’t identify, although I count at least four crew. Photo comes thanks to Phil Little.
Thanks to Jed and Phil for the first and last photos here; all the others are by Will Van Dorp.
Here’s looking back at the Maryland Rte 213 Bridge at Chesapeake City, as we exit the C & D Canal and enter the Chesapeake at sunrise.
On call on the north side of the waterway is Delaware Responder, one of a fleet of 15 nationwide. Here and here I’ve previously posted.
We pass the unmistakeable Dann Marine docks and
head into the Chesapeake, water level of the largest watershed in the East, which stretches northward nearly to the Mohawk and the Erie Canal. The area is the southern end of a flyway that extends to the Saint Lawrence.
You’d think that almost obscured light would be called Eagle Point Light, but the turkey gets the name.
The Bay sees a lot of traffic, although Amara Zee, a traveling theatre show, has to be one of the more unique vessels navigating it. I have more photos of Amara Zee, which I saw up close more than 10years ago, but I’ll put them up only if I hear from readers about experience with the group, which traveled from the Hudson to the Saint Lawrence, could not enter their homeport in Canada without being arrested, and are now headed south for winter shows. Note Turkey Point Light in the distance directly off the stern.
The Chesapeake is to crabs as Maine water is to lobster.
Aerostats, though, surprised me. This one is over 200′ loa, in spite of its appearance. The tether is monitored by
patrols from APG, Aberdeen Proving Ground, a facility that replaced the outgrown Sandy Hook Proving Ground.
As this post began with a bridge, so it ends . . . the Key Bridge marks the entrance to Baltimore.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Following up from yesterday’s post . . . tug Chesapeake is larger, more powerful than the other Patapsco-class tugs. It also has more windows in the wheelhouse. In addition, the photos of Chesapeake and Susquehanna were taken in Baltimore and Savannah, resp.; not in NYC’s sixth boro as were the others.
For today I’ll start with a mystery tug, one I’ve not found any info on.
I’d love to know more.
Also, in Baltimore, it’s Annabelle Dorothy Moran.
Click here to see my first shots of Annabelle almost three years ago as she sailed underneath the Brooklyn Bridge.
And another boat I know nothing about . . . McL?
Donal G. McAllister is Baltimore’s McAllister ex-YTB.
New England Coast is another boat I’d never seen before . . . docked here at the Dann Marine base in Chesapeake City, MD.
And approaching Chesapeake City from the south, it’s Calusa Coast, a frequent visitor to the sixth boro. I photographed her first here, over eight years ago.
All photos here by Will Van Dorp.
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