Refurbishing Patty Nolan

For info on the Patty Nolan bikini contest, click the small foto below.

V-Day, Chinese New Year, and Mardi Gras @!@#@!! . . . within hours of each other …  makes this a special set of days.  Here’s my 2010 Mardi Gras post, quite different from 2009’s.   The vessel below is Patty Nolan, high and dry in Verplanck, New York.  I featured fotos of Patty at least twice before, notably here and here, the second one initially being a mystery tug foto taken by Jed.

Patty Nolan is the second tug owned by Capts Dave Williams and John Johnsen.  The first–Lewis F Boyer aka Tug Travis–floated from 1920 until 2001, when it was “reefed” off New Jersey.  Fotos of the sinking can be seen here.

Some history and specs:  built by Merritt-Chapman and Whitney in Superior, WI (a suburb of Duluth, MN) in 1931, Patty’s vitals are 41′ x 13′ x 6.’

Note the keel cooler.

Sweet lines await de-barnacling and re-painting by early March.

Power is provided by a 300-hp Cummins, circa 1954.

Controls on this 79-year-old hull have been upgraded, like this “joystick”  aka NFU and

remote control.

You might be wondering how this could be a “mardi-gras” post, for any reason other than I’ve returned from a multi-stop gallivant today, “monday before mardi gras.”  Here’s the tie:  note the “figurehead” more accurately “figure-figure”, yellow bikini-clad in the fotos below.

Once this bikini was neon-yellowishgreen.

Sunny months of braving the elements as well as shivering months of languishing in the cold wheelhouse bombarded by UV light have faded the color of the Hudson River’s only tugboat figurehead.

To put it plainly, upon consultation with Captains Dave and John as well as Dr. Elizabeth, we have concluded that Patty Nolan needs a new bikini. And I’m humbly asking for your help, sort of like the fund-raisers on NPR, PBS, and various & sundy political organizations. Here’s how you can help:

1. Send me, tugster, a foto of a bikini. It can be new or old, solid color or print (polka dot, tile, school or business logo), skimpy or ample, cloth or some other material, even contemporary or traditional.

2. I prefer that the foto sent in be on a model, any model. Given that Patty Nolan’s “figure-figure” lacks . . . a head, arms, and lower-half-legs, what COULD be depicted of the model could mimic Patty’s figurefigure. I realize I could be inviting all manner of tugster “hate mail” here, but we are an equal opportunity, gender-equality- and whole-person- promoting blog.

3. Fotos will be judged by tugster and Capts Dave and John. The winner will be announced on March 20, which just happens to be the spring equinox.

4. Prize: fame–”coin of the realm” in the blogging world–and signing rights on the bikini. Also, lunch with luminaries at the Peekskill Brewery.

All fotos here by Will Van Dorp.

Here’s a Mardi Gras film I’d like to see . . .

Best Mardi Gras on a waterblog . . .  that’s Horse’s Mouth!!