Hudson Downbound ’13c

In this final installment about this trip downbound I took last Sunday, I’ll jump back north to Newburgh, where Staten Island ferry Gov. Herbert H. Lehman is less substantial than in this foto from summer’s start.  Lehman is an example of a vessel  that goes upriver, literally, never to return . . . although I realize I should be careful with the word “never.”

Here, in this foto by Seth Tane in the late 1970s/early 1980s–remember the “fifth dimension” series of ten posts I posted late last spring–is another such “upriver to die” vessels.  If you look at no links again ever in this blog, you have to look

at this one.  Sachem –built 1902 as a luxury steam yacht named Celt–also served as USS Sachem, Thomas Edison’s plaything, and Circle Line V.  Now she languishes in a tributary of the Ohio River.  Hmm . . .  maybe I need to gallivant there when next I’m can do so.

To more exotica, here’s lift boat Vision near Verplanck.  The deployed ladder . . . I’m not sure this awaits the crew’s return to the vessel,  or whether the crew’s on board and forgot to retract it.

Click here to see the same vessel operating near the Narrows about six months ago.

Nearby are Velut Luna on a barge obscuring parts of Tahiti Queen, which appears to be idled.

And in the same marina, also idled . . .  the former DEP Cormorant, also gone upriver to die?

Moving from the Great Lakes downbound with my sister on Maraki is Amicus, a 34′ Thomas Colvin design.  Amicus is Florida-bound and looking for crew.

And I have to tell a story.  At the point Maraki anchored here near Amicus, my sister rowed me to the shore there so that I could catch the MTA back home so that I could get to work.  I hiked through 100′ of woods toward a grassy hill between the river and the train station.  It was a warm October Sunday afternoon, and when I stepped out of the woods, I found myself not far from an amorous young couple on a blanket, there  to enjoy . . . well, nature in a private place.   Ah well . . .  sorry.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp except the two by Seth Tane, for which I am grateful.