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I’m late to posting, but I wasn’t late for sunrise.
Solar Madelein rode the flood tide at anchor,
Regulus headed out to where farms might be while ferry John A. Noble shuttled the early folks across the Bay
a ULCV followed the inbound channel beneath a large incoming aircraft,
Laura K tested out the fire monitor,
another big pink ULCV followed in another . . . one from Halifax and the other from Charleston,
a large soaring bird certainly not a turkey surveyed it all,
and Doris went to a job along with
Yankee.
All photos, any errors, WVD, who’d like to send out this PSA: if you get a FB request from anyone, first check if you might already be friends with that person. Spoofers lurk out there impersonating real folks.
I don’t go to galleries, museums, or other events enough, I know, but ’tis the season when it’s dark and rainy, and indoors can be bright, dry, and cheery. Rainy Sunday afternoon recently, I stopped in at the Noble Maritime Collection on Staten Island to show it to a friend not familiar with Noble’s work. Snug Harbor –location of Noble Maritime— is always a good place to visit. I’ll put links to John A. Noble in general at end of post, and I know some of my readers knew him.
Here’s one of the images that caught and held me. Spend some time and savor it; farther below is more information.
How about those 1949 Cadillacs? I needed to know more about the Cadillacs, of course. And I found some. Can you name the other “Cadillacs” of the Moran fleet? Any more about them? Answer follows.
Here’s a slightly closer up of the image above. This image is on display as part of a current exhibit called “Andrea Doria: Rescue at Sea.”
While you mull over what you know about the Moran Cadillacs, how ’bout a glance at some Cadillacs of that general vintage.
Never before have I looked at a hood ornament and thought how much that figure resembles a version of mermaid . . . not a woman and fish; rather, a woman and a ray. Agree?
The first of four here is a Cadillac, again . . . that general vintage. Can you name the other three?
All photos, any errors or digressions, WVD.
Here and here are some starter John A. Noble links. Here’s an online gallery of some of his works for sale.
As to Moran’s Cadillacs: Grace (now Towell Power), Doris (last Piar), Barbara (reefed as Georgia), Carol (reefed near her sister), and Moira (later Cedar Point) from Levingston Shipbuilding, now gone. They launched at the rate of one each month between April and August 1949. Paul Strubeck mentions their naval architect–Tams Inc., in his book Diesel Railroad Tugboats I reviewed not even two months ago here.
While I’m on books, Erin Urban offers at least two books on John A. Noble.
Since it’s THE maiden voyage arrival, let’s follow her all the way to “all fast.” Here were parts 1 and 2, which followed her from several miles out in the Ambrose Channel to the Narrows and then from there to mid-KVK.
Eric works the starboard and Ellen, the port.
The turn at Bergen Point is way more than 90 degrees . . . more like 135, and
takes well-timed thrusting at bow and stern. Notice Atlantic Concert just above Eric‘s stern?
Atlantic Concert is completing its clockwise spin here to line up its stern ramp, a maneuver
that Atlantic Star will replicate.
Here Eric McAllister is beginning the push on the stern to assist with that clockwise spin; Ellen and Atlantic Star‘s own three thrusters are also likely engaged.
Spin complete, Eric moves over to the port side to nudge Atlantic Star gently against the dock. I wrote about the reverse maneuver here some years ago.
Getting a profile of these two CONROs lined up . . . is not easy, since they represent nearly a half mile of ship.
Foreshortening helps a little.
I’ll be watching for the remainder of the G4 vessels–Atlantic Sail, Atlantic Sea, Atlantic Sky, and Atlantic Sun.
All photos here by Will Van Dorp, with thanks to NY Media Boat.
Also many thanks to JS, a retired harbor worker who made this connection for me between Atlantic Container Line, their generation 2 vessels, and John A. Noble. The image below comes from pages 210 –11 of Erin Urban’s Hulls and Hulks in the Tide of Time, a must-read for all students of the sixth boro work boats. Noble called the 1977 print “The Cinderella Passes the Occidental,” and then writes his sense of this new container ship passing the hulk of 1874 full-rigged ship called the Occidental. He also alludes to having drawn the Atlantic Cinderella when she was brand new, but I have yet to locate copies of those drawings. Oh well. Many thanks to JS, whose previous contribution you might have seen here.
John A. Noble’s “The Cinderella Passes the Occidental”
What is this tow . . . eastbound on the East River? Clues: The year is 1948 and that’s Brooklyn Bridge, South Street Seaport, and lower Manhattan in the background. Also, the Staten Island ferry has operated a +1100-passenger vessel since 1986 named in honor of the builder of this tow, former resident of Opossum Acres, and built of this tow out of available flotsam and jetsam.
Answer: It’s John A. Noble’s houseboat, featured in a tugster post here a year ago. And there’s a party/fundraiser at Sailors Snug Harbor in his honor . . . details below. Click on the foto/poster below for more info on Sailors Snug Harbor.
What follows is the press release. Consider participating in some way.
On Saturday, March 16, 2013 at 8 PM, the museum will host a birthday party and premiere the new documentary, Tides of 100 Year: Remembering John A. Noble, by filmmaker Michael McWeeney.
On Sunday, March 17, 2013 at 2 PM, the museum will host a free public reception that will include two showings of the new film and refreshments.
The Saturday evening celebration will also mark the opening of a biographical exhibition, with family memorabilia, photographs, and art that describe Noble’s career. Rare pieces, including plein air drawings he did from his rowboat while studying New York Harbor, as well are formal drawings, photographs, and paintings, will highlight it.
Eccentric features of his former home at 270 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, will shed light on Noble’s personality and many talents. His basement workshop and the interior of his home, with maritime artifacts and tools he collected and lamps and furniture he made, have been recreated.
Noble and his wife Susan Ames Noble decided to “burn their bridges,” and devote their lives to his artistic career, and the exhibition focuses on their single-minded devotion to it. “No teaching. No retreat,” was their philosophy. Susan was Noble’s advisor, agent, secretary, and companion on his explorations. “It took Sue and me about 10 years to know New York,” Noble said. “We rowed, we walked, we bicycled—about ten years. Then we had a little fundamental idea of the vast thing.”
The birthday party, which will take place on the eve of Noble’s St. Patrick’s Day birth in Paris, France, in 1913, will feature cocktails and hors d’oeuvres and dancing to the music of Queen Tipsy and her band. Tickets are $100 per person, $90 for museum members and seniors.
The Sunday afternoon reception will include two showings, at 2 PM and 3 PM, of Tides of 100 Years: Remembering John A. Noble, by Michael McWeeney.
Funding for the exhibition was provided, in part, by the Trustees and members of the Noble Maritime Collection, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. Michael McWeeney is the recipient of a DCA Premier Grant from the Council on the Arts & Humanities for Staten Island (COAHSI), with public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
The Tides of 100 Years exhibition will remain on view through 2013. The Noble Maritime Collection is located at Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden and is open to the public Thursdays through Sundays from 1 until 5 PM. Tours of the museum and school programs are welcome weekdays as well.
For information, call the Noble Maritime Collection at (718) 447-6490 or visit www.noblemaritime.org
Click here for a sampling of Noble’s work. Click here for info on a profusely-illustrated biography. Click here for info on a Snug Harbor project to transform Robbins Reef Light.
Unrelated but similar to the top foto, click here for a tugster post from almost three years ago.
No orange is more brilliant on the Upper Bay than that of the Staten Island ferries. Of course, no creature of the water–live or mechanical–sports the same colors ventral as dorsal. And thanks to the following fotos from John Watson, let’s go below.
Here’s a thing of beauty as visible from the inside of a floating drydock at Caddell– one end of the double-ender Samuel I. Newhouse.
Note the worker for scale.
What might surprise many people is the absence of props/shafts and the existence of this disc-like recess.
Disassembled, here’s the drive unit that fits into the recess
Each of the circular spaces in this subassembly houses a vertical blade. For an animation showing movement, click here.
Note the same transition from orange to blue to red and vertical blades here on Noble.
If you’ve wondered how these ferries negotiate into the ferry racks in adverse tidal flow, traveling sideways . . . now you know.
All fotos above except the first one come compliments of John Watson. Newhouse fotos date from summer ’94; Noble . . . from summer 2000.
Here’s a parting shot of one of my favorite moments of orange from earlier in 2012.
tugster: a waterblog 
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