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A few winters ago I began this project and enjoyed wonderful collaboration in the comments section and email with parts A through M, and then I ran out of photos.
This is a somewhat degraded version of an image from a glass plate, which still exists, although I don’t have access to it. Let me pull out some sections so that you can get a closer look and draw some conclusions. I’ll share a piece of info later in the post..
The photo was said to have been taken at 3:15 pm on August 28, 1907 in Pendleton NY. Given that date and the wooded bank of the waterway, wolud this be the predecessor to the Barge Canal? The photographer’s name is not given. The wooden tugboat A. A. Bellinger is alongside a barge. The Merchant Steam Vessels of the US for 1906 page 182 says the 43′ x 12.2′ tugboat was built in Buffalo in 1880. I’m not sure the function of the barge. Are those bicycles on the cabin top of the barge? One person on the tug is back to the camera. A person stands atop the barge. Two people–a man and possibly a child?– sit on the wagon drawn by a single horse. Another wagon, with a cover, is parked in a rutted area beside the waterway. What else?
Many thanks to Craig Williams for allowing me to see the image, and others, housed in the archives of the Canal Society of New York State, who holds their annual winter symposium in Rochester on Saturday March 2. Registration and more information can be found here. See you there.
Has tugster been acquired?
Nope. Check out the article on page 32ff.
The end came in September, but now we write the history, fill in the blanks, double check what we think we know, try to reconcile the disparities in different folks’ recollections. Here’s the article, many thanks to time and conversations with people who cared deeply about this machine, weird as that may sound. This might be the short form. I’d love to try to reconstruct more about what is no longer to be recalled by many folks who walked those decks. Enjoy the article such as it could be written in limited time.
Many thanks to Deirdre O’Regan, editor of Sea History magazine for publishing this article. In the same issue, there are more great articles, including one illustrated and written by Austin Dyer.
And since it’s that time of year, consider joining the National Maritime Historical Society here.
The Great North River Tugboat Race isn’t happening this weekend, but Waterford NY’s Tugboat Round Up will certainly be in a week. It’s been somewhat rebranded as the more manageable phrase TBR. Information about it and other upriver festivals can be found here too. For today, enjoy some photos I took at the 2013 TBR.
For example, this was my first time to see Grande Caribe heading into lock E-2; little did I know then that I would later be aboard this vessel and its sister for thousands of miles and hundreds of lockings-through. I can’t look at all the other boats along the right side of the photo and not think about all the changes and losses; of course, I also recall all the joy I felt there then and during other years.
Friday of the festival, a parade begins near the port of Albany. Dean Reinauer, with RTC 106, was getting a spin-around at the turning basin, assisted by Kathleen Turecamo. None of those vessels were part of the parade.
Governor Cleveland was, however.
Herbert P. Brake was too, here pushing HR-Bass. Brake would go on to become Rebecca Ann, and Bass became Betty D. It seems that Brake has now re-assumed its original 1992 name.
Gowanus Bay was a regular for a few years.
Among the small tugs were Iron Chief and Atlantic Hunter.
Cornell was there.
In front of Cornell were NYS Marine Highway Frances and Margot.
Back then, no TBR was complete without checking on Day-Peckinpaugh and Urger. Again, I had no idea in 2013 that I’d spend five months working on Urger or that in 2023, the future of Peckinpaugh would be so bleak.
As seen from the other side, Tappan Zee II was in the dry dock and would soon be part of the construction of the new TZ Bridge.
All photos and memories, any errors, WVD, who is currently down bound on Lake Erie about two hours behind J Arnold Witte, who will likely be at the 2023 TBR next weekend. She’s just starting through the Welland Canal as of this writing. I’ve no confirmation of that; I’m only speculating because of her timing and heading. As for me, I’m heading for Montreal, so I’ll miss the TBR.
If you want to see all the tugster photos from that year, click here.
Grouper . . . that’s likely a quite familiar name to anyone who’s followed this blog a while, given all the posts dedicated to this 1912 vessel that’s spent two decades or so not far from where I grew up, 350 miles away from the sixth boro, which she intended to transit but was prevented by shallows from doing that. Had she transited the harbor and headed south to sea two decades ago, no doubt she’d already have been reefed, as happened with her traveling companions. Instead she languished in the canal, prompting many folks up there to imagine a future for the Great Lakes vessel with such sweet lines. But first a bit of her history and all her previous names.
I’m told she’s currently really being prepped for the scrappers’ jaws. Along with imagining lots of different futures, folks have also imagined these jaws were imminent many times before. Maybe it will happen this time, but first, let’s imagine a rescuer coming in to save her. Her appointment with the scrapper gets cancelled, if not permanently, then at least there’s a reprieve.
The rescuer arrives with tugboat Virginia and a plan: the 1912 tug will be towed
out the western route to Buffalo and then deeper water, waters where she worked from back in 1912.
In this revery, rescue is tentative at first . . .
with misgivings about their prospects,
But little by little,
the ability to visualize the Great Lakes begins to take hold.
There is sunshine, and if no parades and marching bands, then at least a few folks with cameras marking her liberation.
Virginia is unstoppable, clearing one lock after another, rising up toward the level of the Great Lakes.
She makes Fairport come and go . . . as they head west.
But as in a twilight zone . . . froth and momentum
suddenly comes to an end and she grounds, stuck on a shoal, unable to be pulled any farther. Now she’s cut off from deeper water to the west just as she’s cut off east.
This all happened a little over a decade ago. I can just imagine the thrill of victory leading up to this painful moment.
Many thanks to Larry Bolanowski for sending along these photos of what almost succeeded. Imagine if she’d made it back west . . . . Imagine that Kahlenberg purring happily . . .
Another TBR is in the books. Where else can you see very upclose and personal some much-loved boats. I can and might do a post on each of these boats, but for now, just a survey.
Shoofly . . . complete name is Shoofly Pie. If you want actual detail, click here and scroll; you’ll see some profile of each of these boats (and others). All I’ll say about Shoofly is that she’s a WW2 naval vessel evolved into a rat rod (We need a new term for this category.) vessel. It has also likely sailed the greatest number of places, freshwater and salt. I’ve photographed this boat before, but somehow, it’s never made it onto this blog. Some explanation follows.
I frame this as a comparison of push knees on Edna A and J. Arnold Witte.
How about this as a frame– l to r, Nathan G, Margot, Benjamin Elliot, and Edna A. — involving two-thirds of the NYS Marine Highway boats participating in the event. Then another set of NYS Marine was not present . . . working . . . .
CMT Otter . . . represented Coeymans. I learned some modification history of this boat last weekend. It was once Delta Ram and looked like this.
This vessel is the fourth in the series of Atlantic Hunter boats. I had photos of Atlantic Hunter IV (under a different name last year) but those photos like those of Shoofly . . . disappeared.
My Pal Sal is not the latest government boat purchased by NYS Canals, although you might suspect otherwise. To stray down a tangent though; Sal has a song named for her; we really need a popular ditty about canal tugboats . . . any or all of them. Lobby your favorite songwriter or channel your own inner songwriter muse.
W. O. Decker looked spectacular! Last time I saw her some details were not the same.
Joncaire is several years into her new livery; she used to be the red of NYPA Niagara River boom maintenance fleet, as seen here (scroll).
Here’s the view from the 4th Street Bridge, and
here from the 2nd Street Bridge.
All photos yesterday, WVD, who got out there before many people were crowding the bulkhead.
I missed a lot of folks who were there because I stayed in the welcome center most of the time, listening to the talks.
Last spring, Edna A passed my location with a “nameless” tugboat.
The day before the official opening of the Canal season, Edna A climbed the Flight westbound with a light barge 82 heading for Albion NY.
Three days after passing Newark for Albion, Edna A and the 82 were back, heading east.
If you’ve ever wondered about the rationale for the design of a boat like Edna A, the next two photos should be adequate explanation.
Note the shrinkwrapped cargo in the 82.
What is it? From what I read, it’s a 100-ton condenser manufactured in Batavia NY to be used on a nuclear submarine. Ultimately, it’ll be delivered to and unwrapped in New London CT. It’ll be coming down the Hudson soon . . . or maybe already has. A cargo of 100 tons . . . that needs to travel by water.
All photos, Bob Stopper, a friend and frequent contributor to this blog.
On this date six years ago I had the good fortune of spending the whole day on Oneida Lake on Ward’s Island, a repurposed Electric Boat-built 1929 ferry but then idled by a bridge between Manhattan and Ward’s Island. The self-propelled ship, once a double ended ferry, was acquired by NYS for the Barge Canal in July 1937 and repurposed as a crane ship in 1939. That fully-rotating 65′ crane had lift capacity of 10 tons.
Here are some photos I took back in 2015, playing with different settings on a camera that was new at the time. Our starting point was just east of lock E-23, technically in Brewerton NY. Temperatures went up to the 70s and there was no wind, a perfect late fall day in central NYS.
The mission was to replace the navigation (summer) buoys with spar (winter) buoys, low-profile, placeholders.
The blue-only photo looks west, and the full color one below looks east and shows the actual red or green color of the winter placeholders.
On the mirror like surface of the lake, there was an illusion of flying over the planet.
The summer buoys were plucked out for refurbishing over the winter. Once a buoy was plucked and raised, Ward’s Island crew detached the anchor chain from the summer buoy, and tied that chain off to a cleat as the crane operator swung the buoy
Like I said earlier, the calm weather on the lake made for a floating-in-space illusion.
Some of the buoys are bolted to artificial concrete islands.
The wheelhouse, along with the whole rest of the boat, spent some time in Lyons dry dock from 2016 until she was reefed in salt water in 2018, where she now lies.
All photos on this date in 2015, WVD.
Gene Chaser appears to be a sister of Ad-Vantage, which appeared here a year and a half ago. Click on the link at the beginning of the first sentence and you’ll see some interior shots of this 55-meter yacht support vessel. At some point, yacht support vessel Ad-Vantage was available for charter for a mere 67,500 Euro per week.
The script below the name Gene Chaser puzzles me, especially since I see signs for multiplication and addition. Maybe someone can translate?
Shooting into the sun from a low-on-the-river angle provides this unsatisfactory image.
Shooting down from Brooklyn Heights, as Claude Scales did for this shot, gets this image. Is that a submarine near the stern of Gene Chaser? In case you were wondering about the name, it makes sense when you consider the vessel below is the annex to Dr. Jonathan Rothberg‘s Gene Machine, currently off Connecticut. Rothberg is an American chemical engineer, biologist, inventor and entrepreneur. His business involves developing a high-speed “next-gen” DNA sequencing process. I think these vessels make him a polymath on the seas, an early 21st century version of Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo.
On the west side of Manhattan North Cove the other day, I walked past this eye catcher . . .
The cockpit of this “center console” Alen Yacht 45 is quite narrow and not enclosed,
but don’t underestimate this
Turkish beauty.
And to go to the other end of the tech and financial spectrum, what’s the story with the heavily loaded red 16′ Old Town Penobscot Royalex canoe? The paddler is not yet IN the sixth boro, but heading this way.
It’s Neal Moore, heading 7000+ miles from Astoria OR, city of the fisher-poets, TO the sixth boro, with an ETA of . . . whenever he gets here, but likely in December or January, depending on the assistance of “river angels” and relying on his own fortitude. As of this posting, he’s paddling the Erie Canal somewhere east of Lyons and west of Oneida . . . . That trip is longer than and tougher than the Great Loop. Technically, the Erie Canal is closing soon, but it’ll be open for him. Wave if you see him.
t o
Check out his website for lots of photos and articles like those excerpted below.
Many thanks to Claude and to the webmaster at 22Rivers for their photos; all others, WVD.
Two sets of photos, taken three weeks apart exactly, seem a good way to bookmark the 5000 miles I drove during two-thirds of September. Yesterday I caught these sights of
Sarah D earning her keep and that of her people in the sixth boro industrial setting she’s comfortable in.
Back three weeks before, she was in Waterford showing the flag and
the skill of her operators in this playful push-off in the fresh water at the eastern end of the Erie Canal.
All photos, WVD, who has only these photos of the Roundup.
When this tow came off Oneida Lake headed west,
I wondered how many folks would interpret this incorrectly, that this was a tow and not a push.
Ditto . . . heading into lock E-23.
Of course, regular readers of this blog know precisely what is going on. After a long hiatus at the dry dock in Waterford, Urger has been pushed across the state to the dry dock in Lysander to be hauled out and mothballed, maybe and hopefully to be revived when the time is right, like a cicada or a future astronaut traveling light years in suspended animation . . . .
For more people than not in the “canal corridor” of New York State, Urger is without doubt that best known tugboat, the only one that thousands of New Yorkers have set foot on . . . .
Who is that unmasked fellow with a t-shirt that reads “tug boating is a contact sport”?
I have it on the best authority that exactly five years ago yesterday, he was in the Urger wheelhouse piloting the now nameless vessel through this very same lock, very much mechanically alive.
All photos yesterday, WVD, who offers this post as contribution to #URGERjourney.
Edna A has appeared on this blog by that name; it was also here as HR Hawk.
tugster: a waterblog 
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