22 to 2 Small Craft

And that’s not some sports scores.  This is a set of photos from a two-day run from Sylvan Beach to Waterford, locks E22 to E2.

A chart identifies locations along the Canal that are just ghosts, absences now like “USAF oil docks”

rather than presences.

Eyes outside though show presences, lots of small boats, very small like

these sculls on the summit level.

We squeeze through the guard gate just west of Rome, where

Captain Jack Graham passed us, passing the entry point of the Mohawk River into the Canal, the same area marked by the chart capture above.

Recreational boats were out on this Sunday morning, and

work boats BB 121 and BB 57 stayed tied up.  I don’t know the number of the one of the bank where, a year ago, we would have seen the now-Sound-submerged T7. 

Thistle passed, a Newport boat,

as did this one, name unknown.

Tender #2 (T2) is tied up until Monday in the Utica area,

west of lock E18.

Shooting Star seems an unlikely vessel to have come up from Peekskill.

Steeling’ Away is a classic small cabin cruiser I’d guess from the 1950s, the time of two-tone cars.  Anyone know the manufacturer?

In some thick fog above E10, it’s BB 107.

  

Below E09, it’s the bateaux of Mabee Farm, the oldest house in the Mohawk Valley.

Scotty waits with a scow below E07.

 

And below 3/5s of the flight, it’s Tender #3

and at Hudson River level, it’s Riverkeeper.

Photo #6 (of GM) by Bob Graham.  All other by Will Van Dorp, who at this point is almost home.

 

 

Cookie Butcher’s Buoy Boat Project

Click here for one of many posts on buoy boats.  Just recently I learned the first three wooden buoy boats were built in Tonawanda by the Richardson Boat Company.  That explains why they have lines that hint at yacht origins, no matter they were designed for maintenance tasks on the Canal.  The next two photos I took back in 2014.

And here’s Cookie’s story:

“I started about 18 years ago taking care of the flower bed that was in front of the boat.  Over the  years the bed was falling apart.    This year I decided to build a new flower bed.  I am currently working with our local Boy Scouts.  I designed the flower bed and they will build it as an Eagle Project along with helping me paint the boat.  As for the boat over the years I have watched the boat deteriorate and thought what better time than now to update it.  It is  a piece of our history that was just rotting away and I didn’t want to see this happen, especially since the boat faces one of the main entrances to our city.

Here is Cookie’s  task list:

The flower bed and dirt were removed.  Ditto the “Welcome to Lockport” sign to be cleaned and repaired.

The boat was sanded and scraped.

Holes in the boat were patched.

New paint applied.   Old windows removed, holes caulked, old door replaced, windows made and painted, and new windows cut from Lexan.

Inside there are a couple tanks that are being cleaned and rust proofed. The inside the hull is scraped and debris removed.

Tasks remaining:  rustproof paint the interior, re-install the tanks, install new marine decking, rebuild the flowerbed and plant it, re-install the welcome sign, install a “Thank you” sign to individuals and businesses that have helped in the project.

Put on new BB 110 sign.  Raise three flags:  US, NY, and NYS Canals.

Hats off to Cookie and her crew.

And while we’re on the western end of the Canal, check out this excellent addition to blogs about the NYS Canals.  It’s called  Travels with Tug DeWitt Clinton.

Meanwhile, up in central New York, here’s an article about a floating protest of Canal vessel reefing from the Finger Lakes Times.

Canal Boats 10 b

Ooops!  I skipped two from my archives . .  BB 152 and

BB x … 0349

Anyone know how many of these boats my archives lack?

 

Canal Corp Boats 10

This post is devoted to buoy boats (BB) only.  These vessels were “used to maintain and refuel kerosene lighted buoys on the state’s canal system. This series consists of plans, drawings, and specifications used in building the state’s buoy boat fleet at the Syracuse Canal Shops in the 1920s and 1930s,”  per NYS Division of Canals and Waters archives, Syracuse office.  Click here for an article from a 1982 issue of the Baldwinsville Messenger on a person who used BB 130 for “river sweeping.”

I’d love to learn how many of these vessels were built.  Meanwhile, here are the ones I have photos of.  Some are easily identified . . . like 153 and

109.

Others like 115 have numbers elsewhere.

Others might have all numbers removed.

Others have no BB number but do have a five-digit identifier beginning with “90 . . .”  here 90246.  Urger’s five-digit, e.g., is 90303.

121,

138,

139

142 . . .

151,

and finally, a summer shot of 153.

Click here for three more, BB 110, 113, and 115.  I’ve also seen others that I don’t have photos of.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who hopes to talk to the archivists soon about these very 1920s looking workboats.

Anyone know how many total were built and deployed?  Anyone know of any that have been sold and converted into “BB yachtlettes”?

 

Canal Corp Boats 8

All grounded here . . . buoy boats 113, 110, and 115, respectively, and all within a quarter mile of the Lockport flight.  I love the design of these boats.  I’m told they were designed in the 1920s.

I need to research their genesis.

 

From the Line Locker 18

Here was 17, a reminder of what this series is about:  I’m avoiding the word miscellaneous.

First, from Birk Thomas . . . a closer-up of another Blount this week.  Doesn’t it share some spirit of 1960 Ford blue?

From bowsprit, who wanted to know why a scalloper was headed southbound along Manhattan the other day, the windy day?  Well, I’m resisting the chance to set up an April Fool’s post . . . it was actually in the sixth boro to escape the stormy seas and 30′ PLUS waves out where it normally works.  Endurance is no timid scallop boat . . .

I’ve been eager to share this assemblage of old calendar, baseball card, and mermaid bottle openers from Greenport, a place with a distinctly New England ship-building history feel.   Are any of these anywhere still extant?  Click here for a photo of a City Island, NY yard that once built them.

Anyone know which sixth boro regular is a triple screw?  Answer follows.

Here’s Bayou Dawn getting some new skin a few weeks back.

I’m putting up this post with my apartment windows open . . . spring has vanquished winter . .  so it’s time for a few photos of winter’s recent oppression.   Ever wonder how the loader gets to the bottom of the hold of a bulker?

Odigitria came here with salt a few weeks back and those holds that were then filled with gleaming white minerals might now be filled with dull black stone now.

As summer gets cooer, I’m imagining doing some research on these boats and the larger tenders.  When I see a buoy boat, I imagine an Elco in industrial disguise.

I took these photos less than six weeks ago, and my finger are only just now thawed out.

Thanks to Birk and bowsprit for the first two photos.  All others by Will Van Dorp.

Let me know what you think that triple screw is.

Time to clear the decks for spring!

By the way, did anybody catch a photo of DSV Joseph Bisso coming through the KVK this morning?