Great North River Tugboat Race and Skills Contest, 9/6/2015

Ha ha ha. "Cheerybabble resumes tomorrow", she said on Sunday, completely forgetting about how work gets in the middle of September, ha ha ha.

So I'll just change the order a little bit here and put Sunday of Labor Day Weekend first instead of going in date order. I went through my photos last night and put them up in a Flickr album - didn't caption yet but it's basically the race, the bow-to-bow pushing, the last competitor in the line toss contest, and then the spinach eating contests - didn't get much of the kids but Mandy and I had front-row seats for the adults and as usual, it wasn't pretty, but it was tons of fun!

Album ends with a dog ready for the mascot contest and a sailboat enjoying the quieting river. Click here to visit the album.

Terrific work as always by the Working Harbor Committee. Missed Capt. John Doswell but I know he would've been glad to see all of us out there having another great day celebrating the working boats of NY Harbor.

East River Tugs

Roosevelt Island (starting point of last Sunday's urban hike) turns out to be a great tug-watching spot! Here are a few pictures of Bouchard's Evening Star, Reinauer's Joanne Reinauer, and Kirby's Taurus, all on the East River near the 59th Street Bridge (slow down, you move too fast...). Such a nice day - start of this blissful warm spell we've been enjoying all week!

Click for slideshow view, as usual. 

The Internet Is Cool #1 - A Tug Identified

So, remember the ___e Ann Conners from the 3rd day of my paddle down the Hudson? This was a handsome old (VERY old) tug that was being restored at the pier where a couple of friends with tugboats keep theirs. I'd gone up into Rondout Creek to take pictures of the Cornell and Gowanus Bay and found this classic there too. From my low perspective, I couldn't make out the first few letters on her nameboard; I guessed maybe Sue Ann, and I did think about asking Tim or Jessica (the respective owners of the Cornell and Gowanus Bay) what her story was, but then work kind of went crazy and tugboat history questions sadly had to go on the back burner for a while.

But the internet is cool. A reader by the name of Phil happened across that post (which was bizarrely popular, I had a great time doing that entire Hudson River trip series and they all got a good number of views but that one in particular is already the 7th most viewed post in the history of this blog - no idea why!) last week and left a comment answering the very question I been wanting to ask but just hadn't had time to yet -- this nice old tug is the Elise Ann Conners, and her story was featured in a New York Times article about that rare and admirable breed - people who restore historic boats. Phil - if you're reading, thank you so much!


At some point before she sank, she was also looked at as a possible subject for restoring a historic tug to run as an educational exhibit in New York Harbor. The tug that was chosen? The Pegasus, of course! Click here to read about more tugs that were under consideration. That must have been a hard choice to make! I love the Pegasus of course, can't ever take too many pictures of her - here were just a few that I took when she was at the Historic Ships Festival at Pier 25 in the Hudson River Park last June - click on the photos for nicer views: 

And of course when I went to an art-auction fundraiser for the Pegasus and came home with 2 gorgeous tug paintings and a lot of inspiration, it was the Pegasus I chose for a subject. I don't think I ever posted the final version where I'd added in the happy trees, here...well, it was December so they weren't that happy but they were the last touch and they did soften up the background a little bit. My artist friends would've done this twice as well in a tenth of the time, of course, but I had fun working it out and was pretty happy with the end results. 

Have to get back to the painting and drawing this winter - it's been such a good and busy summer that except for the 2 sketches during my Hudson River trip, I just didn't have time!

Don't Forget the Tugboat Race Tomorrow!

It's always tons of fun (many, many tons) when the heavy horses of the harbor come out to play! Sunday, August 31st. Click here for details. 

Time for the Tugs!

Here we are again, Aloha Friday before Labor Day weekend, and here in NYC, Labor Day Weekend means IT'S TIME FOR THE TUGS! That's right, once again this Sunday a whole thundering herd of the harbor's heavy horses come out to play, going head to head in the 21st Annual Great North River Tugboat Race and Competition. Tons of fun and admission is free (although for $25 you ride the spectator boat, that's a very reasonably-priced ticket for a great way to see the race, although you miss out a bit on the on-shore stuff). The trouble er excitement kicks off with the Post Parade at 10 a.m. and as usual, the event is centered around Pier 84, North River, at the Hudson River end of 44th Street. For full information, visit WorkingHarbor.com.


Sadly, so sadly, I don't think I'm going to be able to make it this year (in fact if I don't get my rear in gear today I'm going to be working on Sunday, bah...) but here are some of my favorite shots from last year.

Oh, and that winning line toss above? They made it look easy but with the bollard that close to the fence, that took a whole lot of skill - as I recall about 80% of the throws missed!  

For more from last year, click on the "Great North River Tugboat Race" tag below - I'm not sure whether I had more fun at the race itself, or writing things up (especially the Post Parade post where I went completely bonkers - in a good way though, I think - looking up the vital stats of every single boat in the race)!

Pegasus - Pretty Much Pau!

"Pau" meaning "finished" in Hawaiian. There she pretty much is! As usual, click for detail. 

Funny thing is that finishing sort of snuck up on me. I'd messed around with this some last night and then I got home tonight, looked at it and it suddenly hit me - holy cow, I'm almost done!

There are a few really minor things I could still mess around with. Like the happy trees are missing (only half kidding, there are trees along the waterfront here). But mostly it's done. Not perfect but not bad for winging it, right? This really was the most complicated thing I've ever tried doing with paint. It would be fun to take a lesson sometime - actually I think the Brooklyn Botanic Garden has classes sometimes, not that I have a whole lot of free time or anything but now that I've muddled through this it would be neat to go see how you're really supposed to do it.

Had fun with this though!

Brigantug! The Pegasus Gets A Refit

We had a lovely brief warm snap here this week, the temperatures were up in the low 80's on Monday, but things went back to normal yesterday and the cool air moving back in brought on a spectacularly stormy night - lightning, thunder, rain and hail. Good night for taxes, and with that task out of the way I decided to work on my Pegasus again. This business of not trying finish the entire thingummy in one go is something I picked up from Carol Lois Haywood, a wonderful California artist who like to show pictures showing what she calls "process", where she'll show photos of stages of things she's working on. I'm actually having a lot of fun NOT rushing through this and working on one piece at a time. Turns out you can make things look better that way. Who knew, right? :D

Last night I went to work on the details of the hull. I'd filled it in in black one night last week when I got home pretty late but still felt like doing a little work on it, that didn't take long so I'd actually tried to start on one of those three raised strips that run the length of the hull, but I got off to a bad start and decided I should call it a night (I was at least able to repair the damage). Last night I got back to those, proceeded with a lighter touch that worked much better, got them looking OK, did some shading, gave the puddenings (the big rope fenders) some lines to hang from and finished off with water, first the little spout that's coming out of the side of the boat and then the surface (more bubbles! more bubbles!). I was pretty happy with what I'd done and decided to share the progress on Facebook, where it met with an enthusiastic round of "likes".

My favorite response of the entire day, though, was waiting in Messages when I got back from a noon meeting. It was from a paddling friend who happens to be a graphic designer by trade (and a really good one, too, check out his website - you may not know his name but unless you're that hermit guy they just arrested for camp burglaries in Maine, you've almost certainly seen some of his work).

The message read:

Here. We're done. Now can we go kayaking?
Nice painting.  

And then I opened the attachment and nearly fell off of my chair laughing. Faaaaantastic! 

 

Updating on 4/12 - Copying in a comment that I made because I realized it would actually add some interesting real info to this flight of sail-conversion fancy:

The timing on this one was actually really funny because the night before I got it, I'd been hoping to go to a presentation called "Sailing Ships At Work - Past Present and Future". Rick Spilman, the Old Salt Blogger, was one of the presenters, <>sounds like it was a good evening. I couldn't make it in the end but Michael's conversion of the Pegasus came in while I was still thinking about that. Wind power is actually being seriously revisited these days, I wish I could have gone to the presentation.

There's also a great Tugster post in honor of the presentation, incorporating photos Will had done of a Mast Brothers Chocolate cacao delivery by schooner and a lot of other info - <>click here for that.

What really cracks me up is what a really sort of decent-looking tall ship the Pegasus's hull would make. She does have very nice lines though, one of my strongest recollections of a very interesting talk on the restoration of the Pegasus given by Capt. Pam gave once at the Waterfront Museum was when she started showing slides of the original designs and pointing out the beautiful curves of the hull (you can see some of those pictures on the restoration log.

Tug doodle

Tug art on the brain! Did this yesterday while processing invoices (I had a whole bunch come in at the same time & there's a moment after you hit "Approve" that the system pauses while it decides whether it really wants to let you or not). Came out kind of cute. See yesterday's post for why I have tug art on the brain. Hoping to make it to the Ear tonight!" 

Tug Art Sale for the Pegasus - Tuesday 4/2/2013 at the Ear

Just the quickest of posts here, this one totally snuck up on me - tomorrow night there's going to be a fun benefit for the Tug Pegasus - an art sale at the oh-so-salty Ear Inn (actually the gallery upstairs). Entry starts at $50.00 but it's to support the Tug Pegasus Preservation Project, one of my favorite local waterfront not-for-profit groups. Click here for full details on the sale and the group!

Duke, official boat's dog (and oh-so-handsome winner of the Best Mascot contest at the 2012 Great North River Tugboat Race and Competition) says "Support my boat - and don't let Capt. Pam forget the doggy bag, OK?"

Line-throwing and bow-to-bow pushing contest photos. Great North River Tugboat Race & Contest Part...um, I lost track

Oops. I was being overly optimistic when I said I was going to write a post about paddling tonight. That happens sometimes in September - I just got going on another one of those time-sensitive things and all the sudden, oops, nine PM. And I knew I had worked myself cross-eyed when I was approaching the Victoria's Secret store and was trying to read the word that's written over the latest buxom-beauty photos in the windows and my first take was "bulbous". Well, they are, sort of, or at least parts of them are. But that's not exactly a word that I would think of as making people rush in off the street to buy foundation garments. Bit of a head-scratcher there.

Also a pretty good hint that I'd worked about an hour longer than was going to be conducive to writing a nice post about my first wonderful, lovely, fabulous solo paddle in I can't remember how long.

Oh right -- "fabulous". That was actually the word, it was just my tired eyes playing funny word-association games that made me see "bulbous".

 Anyways, sorry about the tease, but in the meantime, here are some more tugboat photos. I really am close to done now!  I'm going to put the last two on-water contests up here now, but I'm going to switch the order to  put my favorite photos first. The line-throwing contest was actually part of why I didn't go on the spectator boat - you miss most of this if you're on the spectator boat, and if you can get a good spot (which I did), this is tons of fun to take photos of! So here we go again -

Grrrr! Go Go Growler!

Susan Miller (I think)

Freddie K Miller 

Catherine C. Miller - we (the audience) were all cracking up at this guy with his old-school cig-in-the-corner-of-the-mouth routine.  If he'd made it you would've heard the howl of glee in Staten Island! 

He didn't, though, and since the Catherine C. Miller was the last in the lineup, a couple of other people tried. This guy made a highly credible attempt, and then unfortunately the boat swiveled around a little too far and the big post on the bow was blocking my view when the kid in the yellow lifejacket gave it a shot. I don't know if it would've been strictly regulation, but I bet that if the kid had made it, the Working Harbor Committee would've awarded him 3rd place. 

BTW, if you watched the videos, you may have heard the chants of "Cut The Fence! Cut The Fence!", and a friend also left a comment about it - the organizers did say that this was the worst year ever as far as failed attempts, but it would actually make for a more hotly-contested contest - I bet you'd get a lot more wild throws like this one (Vulcan III, I think they were first and their thrower really went for a long shot - the target bollard is over by the American flag!). Unlikely to happen, of course, but it would be fun.

And now, backing up a bit for the bow-to-bow pushing - actually this contest was where being on the spectator boat was great, I got a few good shots with the zoomier of my 2 lenses (not one of those gigantic bird scopes, but I've been very happy with it for shooting ships & boats & stuff), but I think Vlad and Johnna got better shots, and then of course Tugster was actually on a tug - but here are my best efforts!

Buchanan vs. Buchanan

Quantico Creek vs. Little Toot (as Vlad & Johnna mentioned, some of the matchups aren't exactly even!)

Quantico Creek vs. Maurania III - Tugster actually has a picture of this match (a little more even, right) from on board the Maurania III. 

And this was what Vlad & Johnna referred to as "Miller melee" - I couldn't make out exactly what was going on out there in that tugboat scrum, but apparently the Miller tugs all started a free-for all! Oh, btw, in my Post Parade post, I'd been wondering if there was a relationship between the Debora Miller (from Miller Marine Services in Port Jefferson, NY) and the rest of the Miller tugs (from Miller's Launch on Staten Island) - well, Capt. Doswell from the Working Harbor Committee (and he and Jean are also old friends from my years at Pier 63 Maritime) answered that, the owners of the two Miller companies are brothers, so I guess the boats are cousins.

And guess what? That's it for the on-water section of the 20th Annual Great North River Tugboat Race and Contest!

Line Heaving Contest - Video Clips

Well, I may actually do a real post tonight (got out for my first solo paddle in ages yesterday, it was lovely, and it was also a bit surprising to me how many of my J-Bay paddler friends busted loose and went solo yesterday - nice day for it, though) but here's a little fun on my lunch break - yep, more tugboats!

I switched to videos for part of the line-heaving contest & was very happy to capture the 1st and 2nd place heavers (almost said tossers but I think that's an insult some places). There was no 3rd place because there were actually only 2 who snagged the bollard at all. I'd uploaded the 2 succesful throws to YouTube a couple of days after the race; last night I added Meagan Ann's first try because it was such a perfect demonstration of how the fence behind the bollard was causing issues. The Working Harbor folks said this year was unusual, though - it's definitely a tricky setup but they've been using the same bollard for the last few years & they've never seen so many misses!

Here was the 2nd place winner, Buchanan 12. The square bow that renders them less competitive in the race turns into a competitive advantage here, I think, plus they'd already watched a number of other tugs try and fail, and the captain wisely chose a very slow approach. He puts his thrower right where he needs to be & then holds position until the job is done. No record-breaker, sure (in fact it's 1:30 in the video when the thrower really starts organizing himself for the throw) but good enough for second place this year!

And then, of course, the Meagan Ann came back for her 2nd run (each tug gets 2). I believe that proper innertubes parlance for this would be "FTW". For The Win. I mean, like, totally. I had almost switched back to photo mode for this run but there was suddenly this sense among the crowd that maybe this was going to be the winning run (I heard more than one person saying things like "He's gonna get it this time", and they'd come so close in their first try) and I decided to stick with video, and I was glad I did, this was just beautifully done.

MMMM SPINACH!

Click on any picture to see these faces properly.

Popeye Spinach-Eating Contest at the Labor Day weekend Tugboat Race & Contest. Yep, back to that now! This was the childrens' division. Then things got UGLY.