Small Craft 20

It’s the first full day of spring, which means that soon many more small craft will operate on the sixth boro, yet all winter long, many small boats never leave.

If this is a Class A 25′ SAFE Defender boat, it may have entered service in 2002.   I’ll be back with this.

Here are a team of the newer 29′ USCG vessels.

Line and boom boats, patrol boats . . . these small craft operate in the sixth boro all year round.

Ditto survey boats like this one.

Over alongside Rhea‘s stern, that’s certainly a launch from Miller’s.

I’m guessing these are 31′ SAFE boats operated by NYPD, but they’ve been running in threes of late.  They also have larger Vigor (ex-Kvichak)-built boats.

NJ State Police has a few small boats that patrol/train all year round.

NYPD has had a few of these for almost five years now.  When they first arrived, I was astonished by the speed they could make.

USACE Moritz first launched in 2001.

 

So let’s go back to that 25′ Defender in the first photo, but at closer inspection . . . see the logo on the door . . . it’s a DonJon RIB.

USCG checking me out with a long lens? . . . Nah, that’s Bjoern of New York Media Boat.  Check out their blog here, and book a tour here.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who’s again reminded that you’ll see something new each time you go down to the water and look closely.  And in the next few months, in all waters recently ice-bound, be ready to see an influx of recreational boats coming north for the summer.

 

Small Craft 19

Here are previous iterations of this title.

Well, in fresh water like the Upper Saint Lawrence, they look like this, from a photo by Jake Van Reenen.

In salt water, even small outboard work year round.  There are boom boats,

patrol boats,

more boom boats,

clam-digging boats,

small island supply boats,

fishing boats,

police boats,

. . . and 29′ Defiant boats.

Top photo credit to Jake;  all others by Will Van Dorp.

 

Small Craft 17

At first, I’d been concerned these folks in green kayakers were holding the wall for stability.

Then later I saw this and realized that the Chicago River has so much current that

one guide’s role in a “muster” is to paddle up current to keep the raft from heading for the Mississippi.

And this styling?

It only made sense when I saw them again in the Straits….

I believe this is a Ranger 21 . . .

nice, but maybe having an exhilarating day.

And recreational fishing, there’s a lot of it in

the lake and its bays

all day long.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Small Craft 16

To me, this is a water craft built with craftsmanship and sailed with care.

 

The blue boat . . . well, I just hope the paddler is not wearing headphones.

Here’s another hand-crafted wooden boat.

 

Here?    Well, kayaks are fun.   I used to spend many hours in an earlier version of these surfing New Hampshire coastal waves, but I wonder about using them here.  The positive is the discovery possible in human-powered and small scale boats.

Here’s a craftsman of small craft I’d like to find more about, Ralph Frese.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

Small Craft 14

I’m doing a short post today, but it may be big in questions.  First of all, Goat Locker?  It’s a name rich in tradition.  Click here and make sure to read the reference by Mark D. Faram.

So, 1200 hp on the stern of large RIB .  .  . That’s impressive.

And then there’s this, the ONLY boat in North Cove.  Here’s what the website says it’s for.  Read what it says here about the use of this 25′ SAFE, i.e.,  “Plan B maintains your Military RHIB boat and keeps it fueled, maintained and ready to go. Then, in the event evacuation is required, you simply proceed to your boat’s Westside location.”  Wow . . . James Bond?

Some six hundred miles farther south in Southport, NC . . . No Wake dwells in a wholly different climate.  It’s a nice boat, although I know nothing about it.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, whose previous posts in this series go back almost seven years.

 

Government Splash

Tiny boat in KVK hits tugboat wake, samples submarine life.

Here’s the same vessel seconds earlier.  Corps of Engineers vessel?  Innovative sampling technique?

Not quite so extreme . . . with this security vessel, which

seconds before had zoomed toward the Buttermilk.

No, I didn’t catch this Harlem River-patrolling NYPD boat with bone-in-teeth, but I love the billboard.  I figure it refers to a TV show, but–given the law enforcement boat–more apropos might be . . “underworlds of the city.”  Or

given the splash around the first Engineers boat . . . underwater in the city.

Unrelated:  I took the foto below at the Tug Roundup to capture Spooky Boat history.  And I just relocated it this rainy afternoon.

Photos, WVD.