From the Line Locker 32

I just happened to look at the August 2014 section of the archive, and this was the engine room at that time of the living, breathing tugboat Urger.

The top photo shows the Atlas-Imperial fore-to-aft along the portside, and below, it’s the opposite . . .  starboard side aft-to-fore.

Below is that same view as above, except with a tighter frame on the top of the engine.  On my YouTube channel here,   are several videos of this engine running and Urger underway. 

Below from early September 2015 are three NYS Canals boats, l to r, Tender #3, Gov. Cleveland, and Urger. . . .  all old and in jeopardy.

At that same 2015 Tugboat Roundup that precipitated the photo above, notice the juxtaposition of old and new:  passing in front of the 1914 Lehigh Valley 79 is

Solar Sal, which a month later would earn distinction as the first solar vessel to transit the canal from Buffalo to the Hudson with four tons of cargo, as a demonstration of its potential. Solar Sal‘s builder was David Borton, whose website has all the info on his designs for marine solar power.

A story I’d missed until looking something else up yesterday was David Borton’s 2021 adventure, sailing on solar in Alaskan waters.

And that brings this zig-zag post to another story linking the Canal and Alaska. 

Last August Pilgrim made its way through New York State to the Great Lakes and eventually overwintered in Duluth. I took photos above and below on August 1, 2020.

Earlier this summer, Pilgrim was loaded on a gooseneck trailer

so that it could transit the continent

along the Interstates to the Salish Sea.   As of last week they’d made Ketchikan, and their next stop will be Kodiak Island.  Eventually they clear customs and their next stop will be Russia.

All photos except the last three, WVD.  Pilgrim photos attributed to Sergey Sinelnik.

The Waterfront Museum in Lehigh Valley 79 is now home to a high-res livestream harbor cam aimed from Red Hook;  check it out here.

 

 

Exotic Erie Canal

The Canal has likely been called lots of things, but exotic might never have been used.  But I would argue that it is just exactly that.

Thanks to Peggy Huckel for the top three photos here, six more or less anachronistic rowers of an 18th-century bateau (bah TOW) on a mission.  If you look closely at the second rower from the bow, red shirt and white 21st-century hat, he’s the person who typically takes most photos on this blog.  Our mission?

. . .  To meet this lodya, Pilgrim,  built on the shores of the Onega Sea. It sailed here from the White Sea Canal!  You saw photos of it before in this post from last month, and I won’t duplicate all the info from there. Here you can follow Pilgrim‘s own website in English.

Our mission failed in that Pilgrim‘s arrival happened after our bateau returned to its 18th century port.  But . . .

to me it was important to wait for them.

 

 

Lock E-8 seemed a good place.

If you’re reading this today and find yourself west of lock E-17 . . . you may see them.  And if your Russian is better than mine, you might say “добро пожаловать на наш канал,”  which sounds like “dobro pozhalovat’ na nash kanal.”  In our current toxic political state of affairs, creative anachronists doing a global circumnavigation like this re-enacting another time, they have my respect.  In fact, I’d love to know what reception US re-enactment sailors would get in the White Sea Canal.

 

 

First three photos, thanks to Peggy Huckel. The last ones by yours truly, the second rower from the bow, red shirt and white 21st-century hat, trying unsuccessfully to pass himself off in that outfit as a time traveling bosloper.

Other exotic vessels through the Canal have included the following:  Bounty, a solar Ra, Draken Harald “Fairhair,” the current Oliver Hazard Perry, Hōkūle‘a, Sequoia, Royaliste, Wards Island,  . . .  please help me add to this list.  Some more photos are here.

If you’re reading this while traveling through the canal, check out my virtual guide.

Thanks to Glenn Raymo 11

White, blue, and red comes in different contexts, and

this one along with the name on the trailboard does give pause.

Glenn Raymo took these photos in Poughkeepsie Sunday, and they were my introduction to an ambitious sailing project.   The best I can tell this project began in Petrozavodsk, a city on the western shore of Lake Onega, in northwest Russia, a few hundred miles east of access to the Baltic at St. Petersburg.  Lake Onega is connected to both the Baltic and the Arctic Ocean via the White Sea Canal. As a person who fancies himself somewhat well-versed in canals, I was ignorant of the White Sea Canal until now:  mostly hand-dug by prisoners of the USSR in the 1930s

Pilgrim is a lodya, a traditional sailing vessel of this area.  Along with the koch, the lodya is an ancient Rusian polar exploration vessel.

If you follow along on the “news” link, you see their step-by-step voyage from Russia.  Exactly two years ago, eg, they had just crossed the Bay of Biscay!   News articles go all the way back to 2006.

To my friends along the Erie Canal, once the waterway is open, keep your eyes peeled.

Many thanks to Glenn Raymo for this catch.  Previous posts with attribution to him can be seen here.

It reminds me of all the memorable vessels that have transited the Erie Canal:  Bounty*, Draken Harold Fairhair, Pinta, Sequoia**,  Hokule’a, Ra, When and If, Amarah Zee, the future Oliver Hazard Perry, Lois McClure . . . I have no doubt left some out.

*I have photos but I’ve not posted them on tugster.   **One of the planned but not realized posted is a review of Capt. Giles M. Kelly‘s book;  any volunteer to write a review?  You’ll get a free book.

And to the crew of Pilgrim,    попутный ветер, друзья мои      I hope I spelled that right.