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Since 2011, the Hymans have sent along photos of the race from the starting line. Again this year, I have the pleasure to share them. Here’s an orderly shuffle toward the starting blocks.
Then the boats spin around and await the countdown.
3– 2– 1 Hit the horn and push the throttle!
Happy Labor Day 2015.
Thanks much to William and Marian Hyman for use of these photos.
Click here for the post I did about the 2006 race, the first one I participated in.
Bravo to the organizers and participants of the 2015 NYC race. It starts with a muster…
L to r: Catherine Miller, Robert E. McAllister, Eric R. Thornton, Mister T, Buchanan 1, and Buchanan 12
which looks different as you shift perspective.
Add Red Hook and Sarah Ann, with a jet ski for scale.
Add Thomas Witte.
Take a close up on Mister T with John J. Harvey in the distance.
It’s great to see race newcomers like Sea Scout Ship 243 out of Rahway NJ, and
By this point, some boats like Robert E. McAllister start to get impatient.
Muster then turns into a procession, filing straight toward the starting line and
showing the colors
as some newcomers catch up.
James William used to be a Moran boat.
Next stage . . . it’s the tension on the starting line, feet digging into the starting blocks and muscles tensing, sort of.
There are 11 boats here, including Margot pushing a set of rock barges and not racing.
They’re off!
and water starts to cascade away from the bows…
froth by the ton.
But when the quick minutes of the race have elapsed, the first boat down the course is the impatient Robert E. McAllister.
And almost as in a triathlon, the dash down the course changes and the pushing starts.
All manner of paired struggle ensues.
And we need to leave. All photos here by Will Van Dorp, with thanks to Bjoern and crew for my ride.
Happy Labor Day. And for most of these photos, I’m grateful to William Hyman, whose perspective was Pier I at 69-70th Street.
The event starts with a parade . . .
including a range of serious muscle. That’s the gray Willard operating as New York Media Boat in the distance to the right.
Even The Bronx represented that bor0.
Then there’s the line up . . . . Anyone have the experience of waiting in the starting blocks before some foot race?
And then many engines roar . . .
and churn up the river.
William does a good job of capturing what it looks like from behind.
Scroll through this 2006 tugster post for photos of my current boat–Urger–in this race eight years ago and seen from the back of the pack.
And I took this photo yesterday of the 343‘s addition to the festivity.
Many thanks to William Hyman. And have a great Labor Day.
Here were 2 and the first. This was Sunday morning August 24 at dawn.
Maersk Atlanta was headed out and
the lifters –Oops I mean Ardmore Sealifter and . . Ichabod Crane–were at different stages of prep to move and
and who be that . . . incoming . . . hull down?
with lots of deck gear . . .
why it’s Alice!!
with all her sculptural machines all
ready to discharge more aggregates on the projects hither and yon in the terrestrial boros of NYC.
All photos by Will Van Dorp, who offers this in case he’s NOT back in the city for the tug race on Sunday. On verra.
Click here for the many posts I’ve done on my favorite Alice.
Resolute and her crew set a new speed record for the course. Thanks to David Silver and a recording he made in the wheelhouse during the race, you too can experience those five exhilarating minutes. Double click on the foto below to hear it all.
David, thanks much.
And the winner of the speed race . . .
in a record setting 0 days, 0 hours, and precisely five minutes and 0 seconds . . ..
. . . sorry . . . this is part of the day too; click on the foto for bowsprite’s rare foto coverage.
The winner of the speed event will be revealed, uncovered, somewhat shorn . . . at the end of this post. But first, besides the tattoo contest, other contests include line toss.
Jamie of Susan Miller shows how it’s done.
Then . . there’s sanctioned, precision pushing.
Can you spot the difference between the white-and-green tug to the right above and the one below?
Vane had twins in the race, and one near-clone.
I’m not sure what this event would be called . . . mustering maybe.
There’s sizing up and
retreat.
On the pier, winners wear not laurels but spinach . . . . Someone inspired by the anthropological study of the Nacirema people might write this up as a study of a late summer ritual called Ecar Toabgut.
There are raffles that landed some this bowsprite print of a boat that represents–I believe–the first Vane participation in this race on
September 2, 2007.
And after the race–if it hadn’t happened before–boats might pose with the great Lady.
Here are some of the crew of the fastest boat . . .
Resolute.
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
Congratulations to the crew of Working Harbor Committee for their work; many thanks to all the companies and crews for participating.
And let’s make this Tubing Tuesday, with a video of the race in NYC, the one in Gloucester and this tour in port of Antwerpen . . al this same weekend.
The race may last for less than 10 minutes for (most) boats, but each participant spends hours before and after. Here, using the power of thousands of conceptual horses and one very real donkey, all four vessels in Miller contingent make their way upriver.
At Pier 66, crew on deck and crew below start them up.
Lady B (read her interesting history here and here, the latter explaining that the “B” stands for either “Benazir” or Bhutto.”
For boats that arrive on the scene early, Red Hook may have come straight from a job delivering bunker to Norwegian Breakaway, there’s time for what might look like lollygagging, and
(in these next two shots from William Hyman) saluting the spectators or just
being seen. Does Seagus have another name?
But it’s also getting acquainted time.
Some regulars didn’t show, and other vessels arrived that I’d never seen before.
I had to look up South River Rescue Squad attending the Great North River race . . .
Somewhere in the attractively dressed race day crew on Jake-boat Resolute are two of the principals of tugboatinformation.com . . . hi Birk and Craig, as well as the force majeure aka Rod behind Narragansett Bay Shipping.
This kayaker stays well out of the stream.
The white bowstriped vessel–Lt. Michael P. Murphy– in the distance won the prize for persistence, finishing the course in a historic half an hour . . . spending most of that time doing a mid-race-course onboard repair.
Despite forecasts of storms–and rain north of the GW Bridge–the only lightning I saw was here and
thunder from the crowds on the piers. That’s the intrepid bowsprite showing us her drawing/painting arm.
Spectators took advantage of any platform.
More soon. Thanks to William Hyman for his fotos, especially the one of an exuberant W. O. Decker, which I featured hard at work using Seth Tane fotos from over 30 years ago here. Click here for John Huntington’s superb fotos from a wet place in the race . . ..
Again, my hat’s off to all who must work on Labor Day, including my son, who always works holidays for the higher hourly rate. And if you’re inclined, read what Paul Krugman has to say about Labor Day.
. . . the premier marine motor sports event in the sixth boro . . . the 2013 Great North River Tugboat Race & Competition.
I first attended in 2006, and when I look at fotos for the past seven years, I’m amazed by all the changes I see. I hope you enjoy this album even if I don’t enumerate the vessels that no longer work here or look as they do in these fotos.
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
What surprises will 2013 bring? Don’t miss it. See you there . . . .
All fotos by Will Van Dorp.
By the way, here are some of the competitors from 61 years ago . . . .
The season comes to the east coast in late summer. New York’s 2013 sixth boro race is 12 days away, but you can get tickets to watch it from a boat already by clicking here. Be patient . . . it may load slowly.
This is NOT a foto from NYC. Can you guess where you’d see this original OSV design? OSV here means “offshore (lobster) supplying vessel,” which I confess are my first love in workboat design, dating from back when I lived in New Hampshire. All fotos in this post come thanks to Birk Thomas, a force behind this site and its Facebook version, which generates a lot of pics of workboats from all over.
If you guessed Portland, Maine . . . this is the pre-race lineup for the MS Harborfest.
I’m pretty sure this foto was taken from Andrew McAllister.
And it’s push-off time.
So in New York on September 1, whether you ride the boat or watch from the pier . . . I hope to see you there.
Although the September 1 race in NYC is the 21st annual in the current series, the races date back to before I was born. See fotos of the vessels from the 1952 race here. Back then, an international lifeboat race–rowers came from whatever cargo ships were in port at that time–was part of the festivities.
Again, many thanks to Birk Thomas for these fotos. And if you do Facebook, check out tugboatinformation there.
Is it a vestige of a past whose
artifacts are mostly
disappearing? Or
is it an enterprise of
what is
to come?
Read how the Danes and Dutch already do it. These Dutch from Tres Hombres wanted to sail into the sixth boro last year but were stymied by red tape. Then there’s the Vermont working sailcraft project discussed here. Andrew Wilner has more examples in his blog here. Here’s a veritable bibliography of hybrid sail ideas.
Working Harbor Committee presents a panel discussion of this topic tonight from 6 pm — 9 pm in Manhattan. Click here for details.
All fotos here by Will Van Dorp. The disintegrating sailboat fotos were taken near Bear Mountain last weekend, and the Black Seal three-masted schooner fotos date from when it delivered 20 tons of cocoa beans to Red Hook in June 2011. Here and here are related blog posts I did back then.
tugster: a waterblog 
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