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Happy August 2021. And “Wow!” That is almost always my reaction when I jump back a decade into the archives. This riveted tug was 83 years old when I took this photo, and I looked at that deep rounded icebreaker hull and imagined it would go on working forever. Now it’s 93 years old, and mortality is nipping at the heels of this Canal tug and all the Canal tugs. It and they may not be around 10 years from now. Of course, neither might I. She was built by Buffalo Marine Shipbuilding in 1927-28, and originally equipped with a John W. Sullivan steam engine. Her stack was hinged so that it could be lowered for bridges. She’s 77′ by 19.5′. If I read the archives right, Governor Cleveland is three feet shorter; I’d always assumed they were twins.
The 1958 Blount-built green tug in the foreground has changed hands several times in the past decade; it may be Bay Star of Port Washington now, but I’ve not seen it in more than half a decade.
The 1998 container ship was last recorded as in Aliaga Turkey in 2017, which leads me to suppose this 3802 teu has been scrapped.
I’ve seen these East River based float planes several times recently, but I’ve not been back to their “field” in the East River in a while. It is pricey but no doubt memorable . . . fun to travel somewhere in one of these. Anyone report having done it? I don’t know which company then flew the red planes.
NYK Constellation, a 2007 4900 teu vessel, is currently at anchor off Vancouver, but has been renamed Tell T (Erase some of the letters of “constellation”). That “erasure renaming” suggests it’s bound for the scrappers.
Here’s Chandra B‘s predecessor, doing then what Chandra B does now. It even has the same crew.
I’ve heard that Ace was being converted into something . . . . what it a floating cocktail dispenser? Seriously . . . I have some such recollection due to a query I got a few years back. Well . . . there are orange juice tankers, so why not a floating frozen margarita or daiquiri truck boat? Can anyone provide an update on this project? What paint scheme/name would immediately scream out “slushy float”.
I’ve not seen Iron Wolf out in the harbor, although I might have seen it tied up over at Claremont.
Pegasus then had no upper wheelhouse, and here it was pushing the elusive Michael Cosgrove, a 1960 Blount vessel that Charon drives for some on a one-way trip to a Potter’s Field.
The 2000 4500 hp Vernon C has recently gotten new life as Mackenzie Rose.
And finally . . . 2011 saw this combo do quite the tour . . . the 1907 Pegasus with the 1914 Lehigh Valley 79 alongside. If you’ve never visited the 79, make an effort to get to it and be prepared for a treat. Pegasus met the scrapper this past spring.
All photos, first half of August 2011, WVD.
I hope you enjoy these monthly journeys to the past as much as I do. And to satisfy my own curiosity, I looked up the first post in the Retro Sixth Boro series. . . .
Location 1? Do you know this tug?
Location 2. Tug Rachel is with this
unusual looking cargo ship, Lihue.
Viking pushes southbound past Castle Rock and
Comet northbound along the Hudson River.
Near the west end of the East River, it’s C. Angelo and
near the east end, it’s Navigator with GT Bulkmaster heading west and Ellen McAllister, east.
Working near the TZ Bridge some years back, it’s Tappan Zee II.
And finally, on the northern end of Lake Huron, it’s Avenger IV
heading for the Soo.
To answer the first question, that’s Coney Island with the Goethals Bridge and Linden refinery in the background, making this the Elizabeth River in Elizabethport NJ.
And the second question, it’s Seattle. Photo thanks to Kyle Stubbs. Lihue, ex-President Hoover III, ex-Thomas E. Cuffe, 1971, may be at the end of Rachel‘s towline along the coast of Oregon, heading for the Panama Canal and then . . . Texas for scrap. She’s probably the last of LASH (C8-S-81e) vessels built, along with President Tyler IV and President Grant V, scrapped more than 10 years ago. She’s been a survivor.
Click on the photo below to learn more about a 1970 container ship still moving boxes, up to 482 teu at a time. Explorador!
All other photos, WVD, at points in various places since 2017.
See the name on this black-hulled yacht? Note the simple upper helm?
Check again as we pass. I took these two photos back in July 2016, making that the Mt. Hope Bridge and beyond that, the Brayton Point cooling towers, now gone. Pilar? Maybe you’ve heard of it in relation to Hemingway and currently in Cuba.
Pilar was hull #576 from Wheeler Yacht Company, launched in 1934 and taken to Key West, not a water delivery until Miami. April 5, 1934 was the day Hemingway himself went to Coney Island to order his new boat, a 38′ Wheeler Playmate. That day is described well in this post. If you want to read hundreds more pages about the boat and Hemingway, read this tome by Paul Hendrickson. I read the 700-page book, hoping to learn more about Coney Island, but besides that, I learned the minutiae of all of Hemingway’s trips on the boat, which he last saw in 1960, when he was advised to leave Cuba and not long before his death. Pilar is still in Cuba, one of two Wheeler boats there. More on that at the end of this post.
The “Pilar” shown here was launched in 1933 as Elhanor, hull #527 and five feet shorter than Hemingway’s boat, a 38-footer that cost him just under $7500 in 1934.
Besides yachts, Wheeler on Coney Island Creek built vessels for the US Army, Navy, and Coast Guard. They built over 200 patrol boats for the USCG, like the one below. Click on the photo for more info. One is being restored in Seattle. Howard Wheeler opened his shipyard on Coney Island Creek in 1910, but by 1950, this facility and another in Queens, were gone.
Here’s the general location.
It’s a tidal waterway adjacent to the water portion of Gravesend Bay. I rowed up in and its many wrecks some years ago here and here. If you’ve never seen the yellow submarine aka Quester, here are photos.
Let have a look at the Wheeler Shipyard then and now. The b/w photos are all from Mystic Seaport, Rosenfeld Collection. That’s the Cropsey Avenue drawbridge open with a yacht coming through from the shipyard, looking from SW to NE. For a closer up look at the photo below, click on the photo.
Beyond that bridge, this was the exterior of the shipyard in January 1944; around a shipyard that builds wooden boats and ships, you’d expect to find lots of lumber.
And inside, you’d expect scenes of curved, clamped, and glued wood.
Here’s a photo I took of Cropsey Avenue Bridge, looking SE to NW, because it’s the shot I could get. Just off the left side of the photo is the Starbucks. From my location, I then shot SW to NE
to where the buildings of the shipyard would have been. Absolutely nothing of the yard remains. To the left is a parking lot and supermarket; to the right is a furniture store.
More info on Wheeler Coney Island can be found here. The other Wheeler boat in Cuba is Granma, the vessel that in 1956 took Fidel Castro and his fellows from Mexico to Cuba. The captain of the vessel then was Norberto Collado Abreu, who had received US Congressional recognition for his service with the Cuban Navy in WW2. For a long read on the boat and Capt. Abreu, click here.
All photos othjerwise uncredited, WVD, who visted Hemingway’s Key West house here almost a decade ago.
And if you’re interested in buying a replica of the Wheeler 38, you can. See here. More on the original Coney Island boat here.
A similar post on a marine service business (MSB) I did here not quite two months ago.
Hats off to all mariners today on National Maritime Day. For key statistics from US DOT on role of mariners on US economy, click here.
If you want to see all the previous iterations of other peoples photos, click here . . . over a thousand photos, I’m sure. And I’m sure not going to count to know exactly.
From Tony Acabono, here’s the latest tug to be called
Coney Island, the location of the mermaid parade, now postponed. Not cancelled. But back to the tug, Coney Island has classic lines, and is a dozen years older than my jeepster!
From the Great Lakes Mariner, this photo was taken in 2017, before Paul McLernan and barge Kirby 155-02 made their way out of the Great Lakes to salt water. She’s currently in the Gulf of Mexico.
Also from Great Lakes mariner, have a glance at Dutch steam tug Finland was built in 1919 just upstream from Rotterdam in Slikkerveer, and looks pristine.
And finally from my daughter Myriam D, here’s Luther and Calvin. Those names make me look around for some more Protestants, like Zwingli and Hus . . . I see the company does have a Wycliffe.
Want another shot of Luther with barge Santos?
Seaspan Rogue is a Canadian tug, although she‘s originally built in Serawak, Malaysia on the island of Borneo.
Island Viking and Island Explorer (both built in 1970) operate for Island Tug and Barge and are former Crowley boats.
Polar Viking (4900 hp) and Polar Endurance (5000hp) appear to be in Dunlap Towing livery.
And the mother lode is last, the Boyer tugs. You can read Kirsten W, Carolyn H, and Sonja H. Beyond Sonja,I’m guessing that’s Halle H. And the treasure . . . beyond Carolyn H, the tug with the upper wheelhouse must be Marie H, formerly Adriatic Sea. The former Java Sea is also in the Boyer fleet.
Tony and Great Lakes Mariner, many thanks. Myriam, thank you and apologies for putting your photos in a folder and mislabeling it.
In the first installment of this series, I mentioned photographers.
They/we do trip over each other trying for that perfect shot. Imagine how many heads and elbows have intruded on my careful framings.
The need to protect electronic/optical gear from rain enforces unusual costumes, quickly ditched when precipitation stops.
The parade attracts automobiles as well as exhibitionists, and this photographer seems to have missed that lovely Chevy passing her by, unless
she was trying to capture this Mercury.
Cars aplenty and supporting causes, and even
tractors . . . might serve as props for urban cinematic settings….
Finally, mermaids seem to be as opinionated as the rest of the population these days, some even
escorting aliens from far beyond the planet.
For next year, consider putting together a uniform with a friend, or even
bringing your place of employment to the streets of Coney.
By now, I’m looking for photos folks took during the 2018 parade.
All photos here by Will Van Dorp.
The parade–rain or shine–starts with music, specifically the bass drum played by founder Dick Zigun, accompanied by whatever ensemble pulled together.
But there’s so much more music. Batala New York is among my favorites; hear them here but turn volume way up to replicate how they sound on the street.
Gypsy Funk Squad is another favorite. Hear them here.
And so many more groups whose names I never knew.
These dancers sponsored by a Mexican restaurant were fabulous.
Lots of groups . . .
. . some just marching, because that’s what you do in a parade.
Even the emergency services seem to enjoy
the duty. . .
rain or shine.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
I’m going to miss the mermaid parade this year. And, yes, I AM going to miss it.
But you don’t have to. Click here for info to get started on your way. It’s free, although you can choose to pay for access to the staging area where I took some of these photos.
This’ll be the second time I miss since I first went in 2004. I go because of the mermaids, of course. Mermaids tell me they often linger below the surface in boat photos I take.
Seriously, while making my way around the five boros and beyond, I see scenes that would make powerful images, but it might be creepy to intrude into strangers’ lives to get those shots. In fact, I’m not really a people-photographer, yet the mermaid parade is all about posing. Paraders want their photos taken. Once a mermaid even asked to take MY photo, but some sort of electromagnetic pulse zapped her camera.
If you’re not from the greater sixth boro, the parade happens on Coney Island, now a barrier beach. Some history of the esprit of the beach I alluded to in this post from 2010.
Hints of NYC’s diversity emerge along with the denizens of the deeps.
A body paint artist there seems to take inspiration from coloration on amphiprioninae.
There are even mermen, or in this case someone I know posing as a navigator about to be dragged off course and possibly to see Davy Jones by a siren.
A lot of families come to the parade; in this case, a friend’s daughter attracted the attention of a mermaid with magic powder.
Each year a king and queen are named . . . as is true for many of the parades that happen each year in the boros, and
this royalty needs to be there before the marchers step off.
As I said, I’ll miss it this year, which has prompted me to have another glance at my photos of past years.
All photos here by Will Van Dorp.
The parade lasted at my location from 1300 until 1530 . . . so many more photos–a few hundred–stay in the archives. This last installment can be called vehicles and politics, although political caricature might be more accurate.
A few days before the parade, my friend Orlando Mendez caught these three vessels headed eastbound, just off the beach. Yes, three. Notice the front of the bow of a tug on the far side of the lead houseboat. Anyone know who that was?
Maybe it was a mermaid trojan vessel . . . since a certain resemblance can be seen here . . . I don’t know the name of this silvery submarine . . .
Behold the flying merlendas . . .
Andy Golub‘s creations,
a Farmall ratrod,
a Ford red belly,
clever signs,
the repurposed composting true that
allows me to get a self-portrait (Notice how few spectators surround me . . . .),
floats with
cheery self-takers,
and then the politicizers and caricaturists…
I wonder . . . this looks like the crowned figure made an appearance
TWICE!
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
Yesterday’s post was the lead-up. The parade never starts until the man with the Coney drum steps out.
This year mermaid queen was Debbie Harry.
After that, it was lots of dancing and music. . . . click here to listen to Fogo Azul’s Brazilian sound. See more Fogo AzulNYC here.
I love the beer can on the drum here, and
the edginess of playing an electric oud in the rain . . . Gypsyfunksquad . . . I made a video of them last year here.
The fog and showers seemed to animate the musicians and dancers, and
heighten the colors, like
this fierce contender, whom I
had gotten a close-up of earlier.
I’ll wager there were more people in the parade than watching it, generally a boon for photographers….
Crop rotation mermaids included soybeans, wheat, and . . .
corn.
Colors and hoops and
. . . crescents or arcs?
Colors abound but
this has to be the strangest dazzling costume ever . . .
All photos by Will Van Dorp. Tomorrow . . . the odd bedfellows of mermaids, vehicles, and politics.
Here’s the most explicit explanation ever on this blog about Coney Island–part of Brooklyn–and the parade that’s happened there each summer solstice since . . . time immemorial almost. Today’s Daily News used adjectives like dreary, gloomy, and unruly to describe the day . . . . Unruly? . . . we’ve been an unruly nation since even before the merfolk started coming ashore. Dreary and gloomy . . . we’re talking about creatures who spend their lives in the watery parts of the world; as they assembled, they seemed delighted to have only some water. The NYPost actually got the story better this time. These merfolk musicians played their hearts out in the rain. . .
These danced on sidewalks as they splashed their way to the gathering point . . .
hopping puddles with all their appendages and finery . . .
But this year I first noticed the checkpoints merfolk had to negotiate . . .
I don’t know if TSA served as consultant here. I’ll call the gatekeepers MSA, and
they were pleasant .. .
as were merfolk.
From inside the gathering point, Ford’s Amphitheater, a human version of a hermit crab’s shell . . . some thrashed about,
others–although this may be a terrestrial wearing deepwater shoes– looked longfully out to the wet streets where they preferred to be,
some mimicked rain,
some imitated human material culture they’d seen around the sixth boro,
some rehearsed their music,
and others just showed the souvenirs they’d purchased during their annual shore leave.
All photos by Will Van Dorp. More to come tomorrow and Tuesday. Click here for previous mermaid posts on tugster.
I’d be interested in hearing from the Netherlands where the Coney Island event has spawned a Dutch version, called Zeemeerminnen parade . . .
tugster: a waterblog 
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