1964 Sixth Boro c

This next batch were all taken from the deck of tug Dalzellaird. Steve writes:  “Captain Bob Munoz helped us aboard the tug Dalzellaird at 0800 hours. His tug was normally the Dalzellera, but it was out of service for many months because of damage to the variable pitch propeller and awaiting replacement parts from Holland. Looking out across the East River toward Brooklyn, Brooklyn was not to be seen because of the fog. It looked as if the parade wasn’t going to happen. However at about 0900 hours we pulled away from the pier with our portion of the press corps. The Dalzellaird headed down the East River, swung around Governors Island where we should have been able to see the Verrazano Bridge. It was not there.”

Vessels included Bluenose II, currently doing the Great Lakes Challenge 2019.   She recently appeared on tugster here.

Gorch Fock II at anchor.

Sagres musters the crew forward to ready sail,

With crew high in the rigging, USCG Eagle passes USS Randolph-CV15 . . .

. . . with lots of small boats being reviewed as well.

Marie J Turecamo and Mobil 12 make an appearance,

Libertad unfurls sails

Bluenose II moves through the Upper Bay,

Esmeralda gets underway,

 

tug Esso Massachusetts sails with ceremonial flags,

St Lawrence II and Esmeralda and a brace of USCG 40-footers , and we’ll end this series with

Esmeralda passing the NY skyline, such as it was in 1964.

Let’s close the narrative getting back to Steve’s words:  “Toward mid-afternoon it was time to return to pier 8 and let the press return to their offices to make the deadline for their stories in the newspapers. As we were about to come alongside the dock and all of the press were anxious to get off the boat, Capt. Munoz stopped and went full astern with the engine and stopped again. He leaned out the pilothouse window and looked down at the press as they looked up at him. He asked them if they got good pictures, got good stories, had a good lunch and had a good day. They all answered with a resounding yes. He said that he was busy all day making sure that they got their good pictures and he didn’t have time to take one picture. Because the Dalzellaird was a bell boat, he told them his arm was about to fall off from the constant bell ringing to allow them to maneuver in and around the ships-all for them. He asked if any one of them could possibly send him a few photos of the day’s activities.

The overwhelming response was, of course, ‘Cap, give us your address.’ He pulled the Dalzellaird up against the dock and they all rushed off. All these years later, he is still waiting for a few photos.”     Maybe they got his email address wrong?

Thanks much, Steve, for sharing this.

Any errors here are entirely mine.

 

 

1964 Sixth Boro b

In continuing reportage from Steve Munoz:  “On Sunday, July 12th, 1964, my family sailed out of Paerdegat Basin in Jamaica Bay on the Evelyn Mae (below)

and arrived at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, still under construction and not to be opened until late November [1964].

Throughout that afternoon we drifted and steadily rolled in a southeast wind as sailing ships from around the world came up Ambrose Channel.”

Below, behold an anchored Statsraad Lehmkuhl, currently [shifting to 2019] at a dock in Fredrikstad, Norway.

Gorch Fock II was nearby.

Anyone have ideas on what that small boat off GF’s starboard bow might be?

Esmeralda . . . is as of July 2019 sailing off New Zealand.  I love the crew hanging off the vessel, including the bowsprit, sprucing up her appearance before the parade.

Black Pearl passes Gorch Fock II.  I’m told Black Pearl is currently in the Great Lakes, but I’ve never seen  or heard of her there.

Juan Sebastian de Elcano .  .  .  is a Spanish training ship launched in 1927 and whose namesake assumed leadership of Magellan’s journey from the Moluccas back to Spain.  She appeared on this blog here in 2012.

“Libertad fired their saluting cannons off Ft Hamilton.”   Libertad has a special relationship with Wavertree, the South Street Seaport Museum ship.

“A return salute was provided by the USS Willis (DE-1027) at anchor in Gravesend Bay.

My father positioned himself with his Kodak camera, with slide film in it, against the lifeboat and mentally calculated the timing of the saluting cannon of the Argentine full rigged sailing ship Libertad and caught the flash of the cannon seen in the picture in this article. We didn’t see all of the ships enter the harbor that day, but they arrived under full sail, saluted the USS Willis and settled in at their assigned anchorage position in Gravesend Bay. There weren’t many other boats or harbor craft around that day, but in those days we were able to get up close and circle the ships after anchoring and watch the cadets secure the ship from sea.”

USCG Eagle was there, as was

SS Rotterdam entering NY harbor before parade.  SS Rotterdam is currently docked near the Hotel New York in  . ..  Rotterdam.

Note the cranes atop to western tower of the VZ Bridge;  it wouldn’t open for a few more months.

Would that helicopter be an HH-62A?

“Darkness was approaching and we set course back to Paerdegat Basin.”  This is reprinted from NY TUGS magazine, vol2, no2 in 2009.

Many thanks, Steve.  More to come.

By the way, one upcoming post features Evelyn Mae.  Until then, are there any guesses on her date and place of build?

 

 

1964 Sixth Boro a

Many thanks to Steve Munoz for these photos.  These were all taken on July 14, 1964, the first OpSail held in conjunction with the NY World’s Fair.  The “rendezvous of  11 ships from 9 nations” appeared on the front page of the NYTimes the next day.

What I attempt in this post is to match up the skyline in these vintage photos with today’s skyline.  With my limited resource of time, I found it not an easy undertaking.

Esmeralda, a 4-masted barkentine launched in 1954, sails north here, roughly between the Statue and the SW corner of the Battery.  Notice Pier A just below its bowsprit.  Excuse any misuse of sailing vessel rig terminology.   Prominent on the skyline to the left is the Woolworth Building, 792′, and slight to its right is the still standing Singer Building, 674′ and demolished in 1968.

Christian Radich, a Norwegian-built full-rigged ship launched in 1937 is in roughly the same location.  Woolworth appears just to the right of her foremast, and 40 Wall and 70 Pine are prominent near the right side of the photo.  Directly below 70 Pine are the Standard Oil Building (topped with black “oil pot”) and the green-roofed Hamilton Custom House.  Below and slightly to the left of 40 Wall is the Whitehall Building. I don’t know the prominent building near the left edge of the photo.

Below, the arrow to the left points to the Woolworth this week, and the one to the right point to 40 Wall and 70 Pine.

Ditto, with an additional arrow here pointing to the Custom House.

A few miles farther north, this is 3-masted barque Gorch Fock II sailing past the Empire State Building.  The barque was launched in 1958.   Correct me if I’m wrong here, but all those car floats just forward of the ship makes me think we’re looking at the West 27th Street Freight Yard (Pier 67).

This is roughly the same area today, as here we see from Pier 57 up to Hudson Yards, all south of what would be Pier 74.

A bit farther north, Indonesian barquentine Dewarutji, which also called here in Opsail 2012.

Except for the Empire State Building and the very tip of Chrysler, not much looks now as it did.

For these vintage photos, many thanks to Steve Munoz, who writes:  “all these photos were taken as slides by my father.”

Many more to come. All others in this post by Will Van Dorp, who has currently again gone on the road after having scheduled the next few posts.

Here’s more on the Opsail 1964/Worlds Fair event.

Unrelated but interesting from NYMedia boat . . . a vessel in the sixth boro whose specialty is retrieving and recycling obsolete undersea cables.