NY Harbor Pilots - a day at the office

Sacha Botbol runs this - the Pilot Launch Wanderer to pick up and discharge New York harbor pilots. Some days the office is rougher than others. This is what Beaufort scale Force 10 looks like off the shores of Long Island. For video of similar conditions on the Gulf of Maine posted by the Penobscot Bay pilots click HERE

A nice day:

Pilot No. 1:

Dream boat

Tiernan Roe, of West Cork, has built this 22 foot lapstrake cuddy cabin runabout. It's got a 30 hp Honda in a well - very economical. Looks like it runs at about 20, and has the right hull shape for a Bantry Bay (or Penobscot Bay) chop.

Here's his blog - with lots of pictures of the boat in process, and links to his furniture making and other things. 19,900 Euro and it's yours (w/o power).

Thanks to Carl Cramer and woodenboat.com for the link.

NY 400 - the Dutch return

NY 400 - Holland on the Hudson commemorates Henry Hudson's arrival in the river now named for him (though it is still the North River in the maritime trades). Part of that is the yacht squadron transported here on the Flinterduin. The traditional craft spent a night at Atlantic Basin in Red Hook (Rood Hoek) (where my grandfather worked on the President Street piers his entire working life). I attended the welcoming ceremony there. The next day the squadron headed north - following in Hudson's wake. For great coverage of their journey go to Tugster, as always the best source of photo coverage of New York Harbor. Click on thumbnails to expand.

Bowsprite: Central Jersey RR Terminal

One of the glories of 20th Century New York City was the ferry service - from Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken, and from the Central Jersey RR Terminal in Jersey City. The architectural winner is the Communipaw Terminal (at the foot of Communipaw Avenue). It still gets some use for sightseeing boats but the tracks are overgrown and the Central Jersey line was rerouted onto the Northeast corridor main line, heading to Penn Station (who can resist - they're building another tunnel to get people to the City).

This is BOWSPRITE'S appreciation of the great terminal.

WTC - the catastrophe and the John J. Harvey

On September 11, 2001 the retired fireboat John J. Harvey was pressed into service at the World Trade Center. It ferried 150 people from the site of the disaster. For a time it provided the only water at the site of the catastrophe. Its story is told HERE. All images c. John J. Harvey, LLC.

For 24 hours

NY 400 - the Dutch return

The 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's Haalv Maan (Half Moon) journey to New York harbor was marked by a parade of traditional Dutch vessels. As usual New York harbor's premier photo-journalist Tugster was there. For more wonderful shots go HERE.

Perseverance

I am generally quite unpersuaded by affirmations about the character-building aspects of youthful athletic training - when the heart is strongest and the benefits of effort easiest to measure. But I took to heart the eulogy of Ted Kennedy, Jr. (see here), who said in its most striking passage:

"During the summer months, when I was growing up, my father would arrive late in the afternoon from Washington on Fridays and as soon as he got to Cape Cod he would want to go straight out and practice sailing maneuvers on the Victura in anticipation of that weekend's races. And we'd be out late and the sun would be setting and family dinner would be getting cold and we'd still be out there practicing our jibes and our spinnaker sets long after everyone else had gone ashore.

Well, one night, not another boat in sight on the summer sea and I asked him, 'Why are we always the last ones on the water?'

'Teddy,' he said, 'You see, most of the other sailors that we race against are smarter and more talented than we are, but the reason that we are going to win is that we will work harder than them and we will be better prepared.' And he just wasn't talking about boating. My father admired perseverance. My father believed that to do a job effectively required a tremendous amount of time and effort."

Here is the Fordham MO.

On the Irish Waterfront: a Jesuit workers' priest and the Hollywood director Bud Schulberg

Check out this story of the waterfront by Fordham theologian and historian James Fisher, author On the Irish Waterfront: The Crusader, the Movie and the Soul of the Port of New York, a new release from Cornell University Press.

At the heart of the book are Jesuit labor priest Pete Corridan and the filmmaker Bud Schulberg, who saw in Corridan a spiritual mentor. Karl Malden's character in the legendary film is based on Corridan. For a video interview with Fisher and some glimpses of the waterfront as it used to be go to the book website.

Sunset over Eastchester Bay, Moon over Hewlett Point

Eldridge Tide and Pilot Book (2009), tells us the waxing gibbous moon (nearly full) rose at 18:24 EDT, and the sun set at 19:28 EDT on Wednesday, September 2, 2009. I was there, under sail, single-handed, in a gentle 10 kt. breeze on a late summer evening aboard North River 2 just west of City Island at Eastchester Bay.

Flinterduin arrives in NY Harbor with a shipload of yachts

Thanks to Tugster for the pix and the story.

History of South Street Seaport

Prof. Roger Panetta, Curator of Hudson River Collections at the Fordham University Libraries led a Fordham-Lincoln Center Honors Project "South Street Seaport from its original conception to the present day".

The course website with a history of South Street is HERE

Image: South Street Seaport Museum (click to expand)