Meanwhile on the Thames

Oops, I pushed the wrong button, so let me finish this now.

This Thames rhymes with “games,” Thames, not the other one.

This shot encompasses the most eclectic set of vessels ever gathered in an acre of water.

Here it’s framed even closer:  two schooners, a fiberglass center console runabout, a fast catamaran ferry, and the yellow thing.

It’s a Canada-built Vector 25 hovercraft running ferry service–more like Uberwater service–out of the New London and around the Sounds.

And here are the passengers of the hour

boarding and

heading out of the mouth of the Thames past Avery Point Light. 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Click here for info on Mystic Whaler and here for info on Columbia.

Summer Sail 1

Tugster has been a work in progress, evolving organically, without a foreseen plan.  So I just noticed that although I’ve done many posts on autumn sail, I’ve not used the summer sail title.  Until now.

What better place to start than with SSV Oliver Hazard Perry.  GCaptain calls it a 21st century ship mindful of its historic roots.  It heads to Boston this weekend to pick up its first crew!   I caught the photo here back on June 27, but the prescient bowsprite caught it passing through the sixth boro here over seven years ago.

Also, in late June near 79th Street, I caught schooner Columbia, another 21st century sailing vessel with vintage lines a la Burgess.

Sloop Woodie Guthrie is currently undergoing a makeover in Kingston.  You can donate to help here.

I believe this is OMF Ontario, on the hard over in Lysander, NY. In the background that’s an unidentified tender 1937 tender Dana II (Thx, JD) and  Reliable, the sad (engineless) twin of Syracuse. See more of Reliable and Syracuse here.

Anyone know why OMF Ontario is still on the hard?  Launched in 1994 at the site of the former Goble yard in Oswego, It purports to be the first Oswego-built schooner since 1879!   I’d love to learn more.

Here’s OMF Ontario rigged and at the dock in August 2013.

Here’s Steelwinds, a wind turbine cluster built on part of a former Bethlehem Steel plant south of Buffalo and designed to take advantage of the fetch created by the prevailing SWerlies.

Here’s 1992 built Spirit of Buffalo.  Does anyone have photos of her transiting through the sixth boro, the Hudson, and Erie Canal back in May 2009?

Here’s another 21st century sailing ship, also with vintage roots that go back way further than the 19th century, and a close up

of her figure head.  Click here for a good starting point of this vessel’s construction.

And finally, here’s Inland Seas, anchored near the Straits of Mackinac.   For more on the ship project and its late founder, click here.

 

All photos taken by Will Van Dorp, who is back in the sixth boro but unpacking from the Go West trip and planning a Go North trip .