Chrononauts 5

Of course, there are little known gunkholes in the backwaters of the sixth boro where fossils–living and inert–float.  This one is off an inlet behind one island and concealed by another, a place easily missed, and if seen, it gives the impression of being off limits by land and too shallow by water, near the deadly bayou of Bloomfield.  But with the right conveyance and attitude, it’s feasible if you’re willing to probe.  And the fossils have names like . . .

Caitlin Rose.  I don’t know much, but built in Savannah GA in 1956?  Relentless.  She’s before my time here, but I suppose she’s the one built in Port Arthur TX in 1950.

I can’t make out all of the words here.

 

Ticonderoga is obviously playing possum. Only a month ago she doe-see-doed into the Kills with the ex-Pleon, the blue tug behind her,

a Jakobson from 1953.

Dauntless .. . built in Jakobson & Peterson of Brooklyn in 1936, was once Martha Moran.

From right to left here, Mike Azzolino was built for the USCG at Ira S. Bushey & Sons and commissioned as WYTM-72 Yankton in 1944.  Moving to the left, it’s Charles Oxman . . .

was built by Pusey & Jones in 1940 and originally called H. S. Falk., and looked like this below, which explains the unusual wheelhouse today.  She seems to have come out of that same search for new direction as David, from a post here a year ago.

The photo above I took from this tribute page. 

The small tug off Oxman‘s starboard, i don’t know.

 

 

The low slung tug that dominates the photo here is Erica, and beyond here is a Crow.

Someone help me out here?

And as far into this gunkhole as I dared to venture . . .  this one is nameless.

Oh the stories that could be told here!  I hope someone can and will.  Balladeers like Gordon Lightfoot could memorialize these wrecks in a song like “Ghosts of Cape Horn,” which inspired a tugster post here years ago.  And looking at the last photo in that old post, I see Wavertree, which leads me to this art- and detail-rich site I don’t recall having seen before.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

NYC Tugboat Race 2008 C

What I enjoy about the race:  meeting friends enough old and new to convince me that NYC is really an enormous set of superimposed villages.  One water village converged on Pier 84 yesterday.   And elders like Pegasus got the respect deserved, as did those of all generations who got the 101-year-old out there to the village square of the sixth boro; and

seeing some vessels dock in the fancy part of Manhattan in finery and Sunday’s best with whatever assistance they need and come ashore; and

finding drama in competition no matter horsepower (like Line v. Growler),

size, or vintage; and

and witnessing the nine tugs boats in this foto raise so much dust in the corral that the “fiberglass outa-placer” saw the wisdom in getting out of the way, and

more tomorrow.

Interesting “fact” mentioned in the ceremony yesterday by the Coast Guard commander:  25% of the tugboats on the East Coast are  based in New York City.  Did I get that right?

Top two fotos above taken by Elizabeth Wood.