Stacks 3

Unrelated to stacks:  as of this moment–8 am local time sixth boro–Flinterborg is off Sandy Hook inbound for Albany to load the Dutch barges for return.  Through Narrows by 9 at this rate?

Stack logo on an independent boat like  Shenandoah reminds me of nose art on WW2-era airplanes.  I’m surprised nose art– way forward @ waterline — hasn’t emerged as a trend in tugboat painting,  given the pivotal  (yea . . . pun intended) role of noses in much tug work.

Stack art could proclaim regional pride like Buffalo does,

although the conflict between the Canal’s western terminus city and eastern gateway town needs to be resolved.

Stacks on steamers like Hestia–I’m still working on getting info together on her–eject some many particulates (count them) that anything painted here would soon be . . . coated.

Always iconoclastic Patty Nolan –“mystery tug” shown in the fifth foto down here–borrows an idea from trucks . . . with a stainless steel (?) stack.

Pleasure tugs, of which Trilogy is a paragon of style, might proclaim a family coat-of-arms, faux or genuine.

Mary H carries some sporty lines on her stack.

Empire sports the most squared off stacks I’ve ever seen.

The Chancellor demonstrates classic passenger liner–think SS United States–arrangement:  longitudinal.

Last one for now . . . Samantha Miller . . . packs her stacks as widely spaced as possible to free maximal work and supply space astern.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Recreation Tugs 3

W. O. Decker, looking huge here relative to Thimble, was dwarfed in this shot last winter beside Curtis Reinauer.

M. V. Bear . . . the   M and   V as in “masquerading vessel,”  given what’s

in the window?  The colors remind me of an incomplete Urger treatment.

Trilogy is one of only four

built by the now-defunct Cape Ship of Massachusetts.

Of course, then there’s tug 44, a pleasure tug that earns its keep transporting fotorazzis like Fred himself, hurrying off here on his next assignment,  and many others, but that’s for tomorrow.

Fred’s project of several years and 1000s of water miles yields has yielded a first-rate photoblog.  For at least the past two years, he’s braved his fiberglass Tomco craft in the Troy lock with a myriad of steel  vessels to get the best fotos.  Go to his “tugboats-trawlers…”  section and scroll all the way through the see a range of vessels, including a floating prison barge.

Tug44‘s foto compliments of Elizabeth Wood;  all others, Will Van Dorp.