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If you ever visit anywhere near Savannah, an absolute must-see is the Ships of the Sea Museum in the former William Scarbrough House, later the West Broad Street School. Given that the house and collection are stunning and the staff extraordinarily welcoming, it didn’t surprise me how crowded the museum was.
Excuse the quality of my photos taken sans tripod, but let’s start with this model of a vessel that has a connection with New York City. Answer follows, but clues for now are that the vessel was built as the Denton in 1864 and you might know the whitish horizontal object to the left of the display case . . . in front of the bow of the model.
The SSM models are quite large, and many of them are the handiwork of William E. Hitchcock.
SS Savannah, e.g., is a great place to begin your tour and appreciate Hitchcock’s handiwork. This vessel–the first steamship to cross the Atlantic--was built on the land’s edge the sixth boro.
Notice the port side of Hitchcock’s model shows the paddlewheel, but
the starboard side features a cutaway to the boiers and the paddlewheel collapsed as it would be while the vessel sailed, which was most of the time.
Another of Hitchcock’s models shows a 220′ schooner as she appeared under construction.
Notice that Forest City‘s demise–as was SS Savannah’s–happened on Fire Island.
The SSM collection also includes a Hitchcock model of USS Passaic, another product of the sixth boro–Greenpoint–although many sources, including this one from wikipedia, state its shipyard as being Greenport, 120+ miles away. Greenpoint’s Continental Iron Works also built Monitor, launched the same year as Passaic.
Back to the model at the top. The vessel Denton had been renamed SS Dessoug when it delivered Cleopatra’s Needle to NYC.
This and much more awaits you at Ships of the Sea Museum. Thanks to Jed for suggesting–half a decade ago–that I go there.
These photos–warts and all-by Will Van Dorp.
From the Noreast.com site . .. these screen shots . . . call this dragged off . . . Check the Noreast.com main site here.
I’m wondering now if she’ll live to sail again. Read more at Noreast.com. And still more detail can be found at saltaire38.
When I got to the wreck Easter morning, as you know, I spotted a seal. In the fog and from a distance, I first imagined it another creature–one more typically associated with Easter but for some reason with a flattened tail and sleeping on the beach. I gave it wide berth, but when it turned
and looked up, I noticed it was either a deformed bunny sans ears OR NOT an Easter bunny but rather a seal that seemed to has a sense of boat survey work, the clue being that it was reading Colvin’s Steel Boat Building, Vol. 1.
Having with me a silkie speaker of Halichoerus grypus aka hooked-nosed sea pig, I thought I’d ask a few questions via translation. After dispensing with initial interview protocols, I learned that ᐅᒡᖪᒃ , as this young male gray calls himself, witnessed Le Papillon arrive on the beach and was calculating odds of it rolling off the beach in like but reverse manner. ᐅᒡᖪᒃ demonstrated as he spoke, and
after astounding me with jargon like panting, racking, hogging, sagging, and hogging some more, he grew quiet, pensively stroking his juvenile whiskers. “Sooner . . . would have been better than now, but, in my not-so-humble seal opinion, it needs a strong vessel . . . of several hundred orca-power at least (must be how seals calculate terrific torque) to wrestle the pinky free of this entombing sand and
back to its own element.”
So I risked sounding like a fool and asked the next question . . . which ᐅᒡᖪᒃ met with such guffaws and explosive
seal chortles that . . . totally mortified, I backed off . . .
I turned back once while leaving; ᐅᒡᖪᒃ must have felt bad. My translator told me she heard him mutter something about “I can’t believe I said that. I need to learn a bit of tact with these terrestrials.” Then, he said something about heading for South Street Seaport next . . . . hmmmmm!
All fotos by Will Van Dorp. No . . I won’t translate the question into English. ᐅᒡᖪᒃ . . . Good luck with your salvage plans. And all your projects.
Day 24, midmorning . . . fog reduced visibility to half mile or less along the beach and tower, and given my dose of Christian upbringing, I hoped I would tell a resurrection story, but alas, as I got close,
Le Papillon still rode the swells of sand,
piloted by wishful thinkers.
Moving on beach billows gets one nowhere, and I prepared to head off the beach, until I noticed
beyond the crowd, an unusual visitor, who
inspected the starboard hull, moving and then lying a long period,
ear to the ground, seeming to divine–or attempt to–
the fate of the schooner.
It ambled around the stranded ocean voyager, conjecturing and
contemplating and
cajoling it to
follow it seaward. All my ears could tell was that seal encouragement was ignored by the schooner just as much as human encouragement was convincing this seal to return to the water.
More seriously, the seal is believed to be a juvenile male gray seal, about four months old, healthy though tired, which would–if left unmolested–return to its watery realm.
Yes, I took these fotos with a zoom and avoided interfering with a marine mammal.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp on Easter, 2011. Click here to see how saltaire38 ties this seal to a Fire Island tradition.
It’s 1430 hours, April 17. Day 17 of Papillon‘s misery. Click here on Saltaire38’s blog for fotos a few hours earlier . . . at high tide, showing Le Papillon awash. Here was Day 10. After yesterday’s blow with gusts over 25 mph, I was curious. So was that mallard, not to inject a canard into this story already rife with them. The most striking change is that
she’s now oriented roughly southward, even somewhat south south west, compared with eastward since I first saw her. Yes, that’s a car in the distance, and low-level sand blowing across the beach.
Furthermore, she’s been sucked down, but surrounded stern to
bow along her both sides with
a fairly deep lagoon.
Thousands of fotos will linger for years, no matter whether she
gets an assisted departure or
a shifting sands burial.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
I’m reminded of this wreck from Tierra del Fuego and southbound650.
Unrelated: since this is the actual tax day, enjoy (or suffer) biankablog’s “accountancy shanty.”
Guess what this is? And check out this link to a related site from Baltimore, from the same marina Le Papillon departed on its fateful trajectory. Maggie of sailingmevoy blog and vessels Me Voy and Tara sent the next two fotos along, courtesy of Art and Linda Benson, who were there
from the beginning. Foto below shows THE launch. The top foto shows an instant in the construction of Le Papillon. I’d love to learn more about the day, the event. Note the absence of a prop. This foto especially makes clear the relationship between Le Papillon and Rosemary Ruth, still for sale; follow the links here for lots of Rosemary Ruth fotos.
Following a northward trajectory similar to Le Papillon was this vessel. The figurehead appeared on this blog over four years ago.
The next two fotos, compliments of Dan Blumenthal, suggest spars of gold and
stripes and sails of ivory, magic I couldn’t
when I stood up close in the dissipating
fog Monday. The construction of Stadt Amsterdam served as on-the-job training for young and unemployed Amsterdammers between December of 1997 and 1998, and
I wonder what jobs these Damen Oranjewerf workers moved into after Stadt was launched. And I wonder who carved the catheads. At some point tomorrow, Stadt Amesterdam sails for Boston and an endless number of points beyond. Keep an eye open and a camera charged?
Thanks to Maggie, the Bensons, and Dan for these fotos.
Unrelated thoughts about this foto from gCaptain . . . (click on the “capture” to read the story.) My thoughts . . . I have no sympathy whatsoever for the pirates; however, that dhow
may once have been a beautiful handcrafted vessel. Seeing it explode and burn here makes me wince. Click here and here for youtubes of dhow construction.
If you’re not familiar with gCaptain, it’s a fantastic site for all things maritime.
Fishing vessel Sharon Ann is not coming ashore, nor is
she–as I’d hoped while approaching Le Papillon–here as offshore muscle to drag her off.
Hatches are sealed, but
here, on Day 10,
she remains, sanded in.
I wish I had better news. Fotos by Will Van Dorp on April 10 midmorning.
I’d hoped to see movement today, but no news. Just
weather. Fotos taken at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Day 5
Hightide’s fury pounded it so hard that it did move, but like a horse with a broken leg
trying to stand.
I kept my distance, but I wondered about the size of openings where water geysers out here midships.
It’s a tough ship, but it reminds me of Gallopin’ Gertie.
Fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Fotos from a few days ago, here.
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