BW2M a

…aka backwards to Montreal, reprising the trip in reverse order before I return there, which I’ll do in a little over a week.

We departed the Rondout in late afternoon, bound for the sixth boro.  It’s always interesting to see what floats near the mouth of the Creek . . . as an example the former Floating Hospital!   I don’t know the current owner of this vessel.

Not floating, but splashing and gamboling about . . . these critters of God’s pastures seemed thrilled by the weather and fresh water.

Spooky is still there . . . weathered a tad.

Another deer arrived.

Gowanus Bay still floats there.

Deer checked their 12 and their 6.

EliseAnn Conners (built in 1881!!!) and the Pennsy …   399 Barge still waited.

So was the repurposed 1963 Belgian cargo motor barge now called Sojourn. . .  in in the town of Sojourner!

So it all was under the watchful eye of a somewhat camouflaged guardian.

All photos upriver by Will Van Dorp, who did this first post on the Creek back now over a decade ago.

 

Creek: Rondout 2

I’m skipping over many miles of my road;  although I took photos, they would fit into a blog about watersheds and Poison Sea-to-Palatine history–which I haven’t created–more than here.

Here was the first installment . . . almost a decade ago, September 2009.  Of course, the Rondout has figured in many blog posts listed here.

Solaris is the followup to the solar powered vessel called Solar Sal, which tugster featured here. Recently Solaris took a six-hour night trip returning from an event down south.  Much more info on Solaris here.  Learn more on these links about the creators Dave Gerr and David Borton.  Go to Kingston and get a ride and you’ll hear only cavitation from the Torqeedo outboard.

Here’s where Solaris was built.  Come and learn to build here too.

A few years ago, I was at the school and saw this 1964 catboat Tid-Bit getting a rehab.

This John Magnus was rowed all the way up from Pier 40 Village Community Boathouse in the sixth boro.  Some years ago, I rowed alongside it on a trip up the Gowanus Canal. 

Since making its way up to the Rondout from downriver, the floating hospital has been a “dream” boat:  maybe art space, restaurant, maybe scrap, maybe hotel . . .  I believe this is the last vessel operated by an NYC institution for 150 years. Technically, it was christened as the Lila Acheson Wallace Flaoting Hospital barge in 1973.   If you click only one link in this post, let it be this one for a montage of many photos of her in a Manhattan context through those years of service.

ST-2201 Gowanus Bay was Waterford Tug Roundup tug-o-the-year in 2013.  More on the boat here.

Sojourn is currently tied up along the creek.

Rip Van Winkle . . . in all my times up here, I’ve never taken the tour.

And to end this post for today, I’ve never noticed this concrete barge here before.  This one appears to be newer and larger than the ones just above lock E9 here.  I know nothing about its history.

 

More tomorrow.  Happy Canada Day to all the friends north of the border who treated me so well last week.

Thanks to Paul Strubeck 3

Here are previous posts with photos by Paul, who decks on Cornell, 

which does most of its work on the Hudson.  Deborah Quinn (1957) has been here several times, the first here.

Here’s old and new side by side in Red Hook Erie Basin, Scotty Sky and Chandra B.

And some old boats together, Spooky, Pilot, and Gowanus Bay. Click here for one of my favorite sets of photos involving Gowanus Bay.  Pilot and Spooky (as Scusset) both came off the ways in Wisconsin in spring 1941 as USACE vessels.

Evelyn Cutler first appeared on this blog as Melvin E. Lemmerhirt.

I don’t know the story of the seaplane landing on the Rondout on the far side of Cornell, but soon I will be putting up a photo I took last weekend of a seaplane on the St. Lawrence.

It’s that time of year, with hints of

the dark side.

 

Many thanks to Paul, who took all of these photos.

Safe travels.

Merrily Merry

My sincere Merry Christmas/Happy 2014 wishes to all of you.  Actually, I hit the road Monday morning for the now-annual road trip to see family in greater Atlanta.

Consider this my Christmas card.  Any ideas what this is?  These three fotos come courtesy of Nancy Donskoj.

It’s the tugboat Gowanus Bay delivering Sinterklaas and his entourage up the rondout to Kingston, NY’s annual Sinterklaas festival.   Sinterklaas is the red-clad legend I was first made aware of, and he would supposedly arrive on December 5.   Click here for more pics.    Kingston was the third oldest settlement in New Netherland.

Believe it or not, Sinterklaas stories are clouded in some controversy because of the guy standing to his left.  Actually not this guy per se at all.  In the Dutch tradition, this man is Zwarte Piet . .  or Black Pete.  The Americanization in the foto below is interesting.

As the Dutch say, prettige kerstfest.

The next two pics come thanks to Jen Muma currently of New Orleans, and it’s fuel for the

Christmas bonfire.

Here are two East Coast traditions, but I’m thinking the sixth boro really doesn’t have much PUBLIC Christmas tradition spectacle related to the water at all.  Four years ago, I floated an idea about a harbor tree inspired by what folks do in New England, but I’ve moved on.  For myself, I like the idea below, the nautical clutter tree in my friend Ed Fanuzzi’s backyard.

Have a festive day with your loved ones.  I will repost again in a few days.

Thanks again to Nancy and Jen for use of their photos.

Chancellor 1

Chancellor . . . built pre-World War 2 in Brooklyn.  This post is timed to satisfy a request from Bob Price  . . . as follows:  “as part of a group working to restore the tug boat Chancellor, I am trying to find any extant engineering documentation regarding her construction details.  Built by Bushey & Sons in 1938, it is currently in the keeping of the Waterford Maritime Historical Society and my group of volunteers recently arranged to have it moved into dry dock at Lock 3 of the Erie Canal where we laboriously winterized it, pumped its bilges dry and a making plans to create a very thorough hit list of things to do.   If you would be so kind as to point me in the direction of any person or entity that might have access to drawings or any engineering related stuff pertaining to the Chancellor I would be most appreciative.  Thanks for your time.”    Bob Price    Knox, NY      518.xxx.xxxx   The first three fotos below come from Bob.

The next three I took in 2010.  Here she’s cruises north on the Hudson headed for Troy.

Here’s she’s downbound following W. O. Decker into the Federal Lock.

House down, she prepares to depart the bulkhead in Waterford.

And in my foto from either 2006 or  2007 she goes nose-to-nose with Gowanus Bay.

If anyone knows the whereabouts of construction drawings or other plans for Chancellor, you can also email me and I’ll pass the info on to Bob and his group.  Click here to see Fred tug44’s video of Chancellor being pushed upstream by the tagteam of Ben Elliot and National.

Creek: Rondout

Second in this series, this post attempts to captures quick details on Rondout this weekend,

venue for the latest Working on Water (WOW) festival.  Rondout, a creek I’d love to spend much more time on, enters the Hudson about 80 miles north of  the sixth boro, strictly delineated.  The word may be a corruption of “redoubt,” no doubt a reference to the geography of the high part of town relative to the Creek.

Some vessels there this weekend included Governor Cleveland and Day Peckinpaugh, both having been featured on this blog previously.  Much more Day Peckinpaugh soon.

Lehigh Valley Cornell and Barge 79, the peripatetic  Waterfront Museum, have also appeared here before.

Bermudan ketch Belle Adventure reflects sunrise.

Bushey-tug The Chancellor was there.  Check info and a lovely drawing of The Chancellor here.   More The Chancellor later in this post.

Jessica duLong alternated between driving Gowanus Bay (ex-Linda) and talking about her new book My River Chronicles.   Listen to a podcast of an 8 September interview with Jessica here.

Canine passenger kayaks inhabited the Creek.

Working tugboat Patty Nolan was there;  hull was launched in Superior, WI in 1931, but I’ve been unable to determine if the bikinied figurehead figurefigure was original standard equipment.

For some sights and sound . . .  mid-day and duck, watch this.  Benjamin Elliott, who arrives at dusk, has appeared on this blog before.  Video made from the venerable Pegasus.

All fotos and video by Will Van Dorp.  More from WOW later.

Ice Out 2

Imagine this post–in honor of April 1, ie, the start of the second month of the year (?…explanation later)–assembled like the films done on the streets, buildings, and parks in the land areas surrounding the sixth boro:  directors lead camera crews to gather countless short snippets, some a second or two long, into a reality with or without resemblance to the calendared and salaried world.  So here goes a movie, silent of course . . .

The trip up Rondout Creek began without incident; from the waterside we documented no flora or fauna but technologica like Gowanus Bay and

Spooky Boat facing down both Petersburg and Hackensack.  When we landed to foto from the shore, camera-bearing guardians

surprised us as we attempted to decipher the decals,  thunderclouds, and underlying paint.  We fled

and pursuit ensued.  (We need a chase scene.)

When eventually cornered, we learned that we had misunderstood a reception intended to be friendly.  That led to an invite to visit Cornell

and  smaller vessel that incorporated a novel steering system controlled by finger pointing that signaled  return to

the mouth of the creek where the lighthouse stood

and beyond which the fog shrouded in mystery;

modern aids to navigation gave way to

more primitive but equally effective ones, and time

regressed, first by smaller increments and then

with one long barbaric yawp, we found ourselves back almost 400 years or so, from where Henry will be channeling again soon.

Hope you enjoyed the movie.  Happy April 1.  Top seven fotos by Bowsprite.  The rest, by Will Van Dorp.

The calendar . . . counting back using the names we still use like December (tenth), November (ninth),  October (eighth) and September (seventh)… we get to the Roman calendar with March as the first month.

Spooky

It took a few months before I could identify this tug, which I’d seen in Kingston last spring.  No one was talking maybe.

When I saw the vessel again in Waterford, it bore a name:

But why . . . Nor did I know that it had arrived upriver via anything but its own propulsion.  The prominent broom in foto is a distractor.

It’s time to play . . . Samhain!  See neversealand‘s play here.

Sorry . . . the hallowdayeen spirit intruded.  All fotos that follow come via Harold, whose foto collection and expertise are immense.  Spooky traveled to the Roundup on the hip of . . .

Gowanus Bay, whose previous shots here can be seen using the search window upper left.

Before acquiring a patina of fright by lurking in the waters of Amityville (Long Island), the spooky one had been just plain Josie, pushing sand by means of her own propulsion.

Enjoy the weekend;  I’m off haunting the river of my my forebears.  See a halfmoonthly installment here later Friday.  More on that next week.

Noses 2

Darkness has fallen on the confluence in Waterford, and a bargeload of fireworks will mark the end of Tug Roundup #10.  Wisps of white pudding on the vessel to the left evidence what had happened under the afternoon sun.

But Gowanus Bay and Cornell were to clash again.

As did 8th Sea and W. O. Decker,   and

steamer African Queen v. the sheriff??  This was just posing, right?

More noses and more on the RoundUp soon.

Tugboat Vote

Labor Day approaches, bringing with it TWO seasonal competitions, not the ones involving shoulder pads or aluminum bats; but clashing bows, with rubber fenders or fiber bow pudding. Nose to nose …

 

in the Hudson late morning on Sunday, September 2, 2007, the 15th annual tugboat challenge, Event #1, maybe a reprise of Lincoln Sea v. Janice Ann Reinauer, or

 

ancients like Gowanus Bay v. Chancellor up at the Tugboat Roundup in Waterford, Event #2,  on the weekend of September 8 and 9. Like rut season for bighorns or moose…

 

or beauty contests with the likes of Governor Cleveland.

 

Throngs will descend to the Waterford bulkhead for tours, visits, and fantastic fireworks featuring mortar blasts counterpointed with blasts from dozens of tug horns, shrieks from peanut whistles.

 

By voting online, you can participate–whether you find yourself in Matadi, Hoboken, Dan Helder, Perth, Vancouver, Medellin, Tokyo, Gothenburg, or wherever else. Yes YOU! You can take part in the competition; there’s no residency or citizenship requirement. Here’s the voting link. (See lower left.) Vote only once–it’s all the software allows, but vote and enlist the votes of your entire tribe.

Note: Sometimes the “fav tug” folks think you’ve voted already because of their software. Try again from a different computer.

My vote goes front and center above.

Photos, Will Van Dorp.