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.

 

 

Retro 2015 Waterford Tugboat Roundup

This is the last Roundup I’ve attended.  Here’s another shot from the swim platform, where I’m flat on my belly. That’s Mike Byrnes, last year’s “old man of the sea” at the portside of the wheelhouse.

Downbound in the Federal lock, it’s Waterford, Governor Cleveland, and Tender #3.

 

On the northbound trip, the two smaller tugs fell in alongside Grand Erie.  Grand Erie is a 1951 build that first worked for the USACE in the Mississippi system.

Tug Buffalo heads for its berth beyond Pennsy 399 and Lehigh Valley #79, where

David Sharps bugle greets each vessel as it passes.

 

Lisa Ann was a newcomer that year, I believe.  She was built at Marine Inland Fabricators, where the “new” canal tugs like Port Jackson have also been built.

Another newbie in 2015 was Solar Sal, a solar powered newbuild that actually transported cargo later in the season.  Like Ceres the year before, these are prototypes, and  like Ceres, Solar Sal transported this cargo.

Ever so salty, it’s Ben Grudinskas, captain and builder of Atlantic Hunter.

Here Atlantic Hunter faces off against the mighty Tender #3.  By the way, Tender #3 is 43′ x 10′ and came off the ways in 1926!!  1926 . . . . 94 years ago.

It’s currently powered by a 220 hp Detroit Diesel.

In closing, the land activities include line toss, open to all comers, but won by the pros. I failed at the 15′ mark.

And I’ve not attended the Roundup since 2015, but unless I’m employed and on duty, I hope to make the 2021.

 

Summer Yachts 2

Here was 1 and another I could have called “summer yachts” as well.  And then there are this one and another . . .  again . . .

Pilar is a stunner in so many ways . . .  registered in Key West and originally Elhanor, I believe it was built in Brooklyn one hull BEFORE Hemingway’s Pilar.

I caught it in Narragansett Bay . . . .

Off the Bronx, this unnamed unidentified vessel, likely NOT built in the Bronx,  roared past.

Some interesting boats on the wall at Waterford here include Solar Sal, Manatee, and Little Manatee.

Manatee is a Kadey Krogen with an unusual paint scheme.

I took this photo of Solar Sal last September and had intended to get back to it.  Later last fall it distinguished itself by hauling cargo.

Tjaldur is an unusual

double-ender.

Old Glory is an Owens . . . seen in Buffalo on the 4th of July.

In Mackinac, I saw this 1953 Chris Craft named

Marion Leigh.

Here’s another shot of the rare Whiticar Boat Works yacht Elegante pushing back water.

And sometimes it takes going a long distance to find a Bronx-built yacht like this 1937 Consolidated named

Sea Spray.  I’d love to see her under way.  For more Bronx built boats, click here.

Ditto . . . in the same Chicago marina . . . this Chris Craft.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Waterford Tugboat Roundup 2015 b

It’s been a few years since Lehigh Valley 79 was there, but David Sharps added a new feature to the parade–a

brassy salute

to each vessel that passed for review.

And what a potpourri of vessels that was!

 

 

 

Folks who from Monday to Friday work on precision instruments indoors . . . on weekends go to the physics lab on the river and experiment with vectors.

 

 

Others compete shoreside commanding line to fly.

 

 

 

If you missed this one, make plans now for 2016.

Lehigh Valley #79 was last at the Roundup in 2010.  See it here and here.

All photos here by Will Van Dorp.