Summer Yachts 5

Schooner Ambergris came in from sea in mid-April, but I still don’t know anything more about her.  Anyone help?

Dolphin is truly a yacht;  it’s also likely a winter yacht down south.  Up north, we see vessels like this seasonally.  I can’t identify the burgee on the bow.

Schooner Pioneer, launched 1885!!, has never been a yacht, but in its current much-loved state, it operates only in the warmer half of the year and it’s an excursion vessel.

Passing the Hoboken/NJ Transit terminal, that unnamed trawler is truly a yacht coming north for the summer.

Care for a summer evening on a Chicago Grebe-built yacht?  Here’s the info on yacht Full Moon departures out of North Cove. If you want a full day’s amusement online, you could investigate these other Grebe-built yachts . . . .    Or you could read about this Chicago shipyard and many other topics in this great blog called Industrial History, which I’ve just added to my blogroll.

Sometimes the Erie Canal seems devoid of vessel traffic, but on this day at Lock 17, there were plenty of takers.  As I recall, these cruisers were from Texas, Michigan, Florida, and California!

By the boat name and the VHF manner as I overheard it, I can guess the previous employment of this vessel operator.

Yesterday I went to this location to meet a friend over beer and crab cakes, my first there in quite a while . . .  .  But if you’ve never hung out at Pier 66, you owe to yourself.  Advice . . . if you want a seat, go on the off hours!  It’s been way too long ago that this gathering happened there.

And although I took this photo in the fall, the reminder is clear:  be safe.

All photos and sentiments by Will Van Dorp.

 

Commercial Tugs in NYS Canals 2

Here was the previous installment in this series, half a decade ago.

Now let’s take a high lift lock, a Thruway access road bridge, and “just my luck.”

When I arrived the other day, this double-locked unit was exiting the lower side of E-17.

CMT Pike was eastbound with barges used for a job in Syracuse Inner Harbor, I believe.

So after CMT Pike was on her way, I walked to the top of the lock to see what I could see and saw . ..

another unit eastbound and just arriving on the upper side.

Oh THAT Three Sisters.  Click here and scroll . . .  might these be the same boat just four years apart?

 

And eastbound they go.

Since I was here waiting for something else, I took the time to read signage I’d never noticed.  Double-click enlarges the text;  this sign dated 2005 gives some perspective to a high lift on the Erie Canal, albeit built a century ago, with a high lift on –say–western rivers a half century ago.

Click here and here for previous examples of commercial tugs on NYS canals.  Of course, here and here are more . . . the classic Cheyenne.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

 

Dredge at Moss Island

I’m told Moss Island has some of the oldest rocks in the world, but no one needs to tell me about the potential faces in the rocks, likely the spirits recognized by folks who lived here a half millennium or more ago.  Those spirits are likely still here, recognized or not.

But what alarmed the geese the other day was not the ancients, but rather . . . blue metal.

 

guided by a skilled crew through this dramatic section of the Mohawk gorge.

 

If not for lock E17, this tow would soon tumble over a precipice, a niagara of the Mohawk.

 

Early 20th-century technology, still efficient as ever, drops vessels over 40 feet here,

and when the guillotine door opens,

they can head downriver  . . . eventually to the sea.

 

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

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