Delaware Traffic 3

River traffic travels in all weather and times of day.   So at first I was dismayed to be without my camera, but fortunately Elizabeth had hers when Timothy McAllister came past and got

really close.  Thanks to the crew, whose demonstration probably inspired some young’uns to want to grow up and be mariners.

Earlier Madeline had moseyed past, checking out Gazela and all else along the PA side while

Captain Harry did the same on the NJ side.

While the rain fell, Caspian Sea headed out as

Teresa McAllister headed upriver.

as did Reid McAllister.

Art and reality mimic each other.  At the Independence Seaport Museum, you have just over a month left to see the exhibit of friend and marine artist Dave Boone’s work and wit.

You’ll be thrilled by the paintings and the biographical materials.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp, except the first two by Elizabeth Wood, who had a charged phone.

Small Craft 4

First, check “parrotlect flickrstream” along the left margin here for my favorite 45 fotos from the start of the Great Chesapeake Schooner Race last week.  I had posted some of them earlier, but put them up in the moment and without the benefit of my “foto-cleanup” tools.

Here is the real predecessor for this post . . . small specialized East coast designs.  And here’s a question . . . guess the loa and beam of this vessel.  Answer and fotos follow.

 Some small craft are just beautiful . . .  sweet

not to emphasize the “just” there.  Seriously sweet lines here.

And here. And nearby but in the shadows was a twin called Puffin.   And that vintage Johnson Sea horse 18 was attached to the

the prettiest motorboat I’ve ever seen.  I don’t think that Johnson comes with the blender attachment seen here!!

This is Silk.  Silk is a pushboat.  Believe it or not, it’s the prime mover for a 65′ skipjack, and while hauling for oysters, Silk needs to be hanging high and dry.  I regret I didn’t get a chance to look at the engine.

Stanley Norman dates from 1902.  And that boom looks impossibly long.

And here’s a surprise, maybe.  The vessel in the top foto here is a restored 1925 Hooper Island Draketail named Peg Wallace, measuring a belief-defying 37’6″ loa with a beam of only 6’8″!!  I’d written of local Chesapeake and southern boats here almost two years ago, but this was my first encounter with a draketail.  Scroll down to pete44’s comment here to learn his sense of the origin of the design.

I’d love to see her move through the water.

Draketail . . .  named for a duck.  Make way!

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.