tug races on pier 84, sunday
Pier 86 is where the “Fighting I” is berthed:
This is why I love to draw on site: my pen found the little ladder rungs on the bow, suspended perhaps 75ft above the water’s surface (roughly estimating by using the load lines.)
Can you imagine holding on, in the middle of the roiling Pacific Ocean, and looking down (not mentioning hostile aircraft or torpedoes honed in on your ship while you are clinging onto the rung)?
Stroll south a few steps Sunday for the Working Harbor Committee Tug Race on pier 84. Where is pier 84? subtract 40, you get 46st.
Pier number minus 40 will give you the street on the west side of manhattan, only. And from Pier 40 and up. Good for the few piers we have left, anyway.
10 AM – Parade of tugs from Pier 84 to the start line.
10:30 AM – Race starts – Just south of 79th Street Boat Basin near Pier I to Pier 84.
11 AM – Nose to nose pushing contests and line toss competition.
Noon – Tugs tie up to Pier 84 for lunch and awards ceremony. Exhibits, amateur line toss, spinach eating contest
1 PM – Awards ceremony.
2 PM – Tugs begin to depart
I will be selling bowsprite art, hope to see you. Come toss a line, kiss Olive Oyl, and pick up ship schwag. Happy Labor Day weekend to all!
USS Intrepid (CV/CVA/CVS-11)
Essex-class aircraft carrier
Built: 1943 by Newport News Shpbuilding & Drydock Co., VA
Length (original): 820 feet (250 m) waterline / 872 feet (266 m) overall
Beam: 93 feet (28 m) waterline / 147 feet 6 inches (45 m) overall
Draft: 28 feet 5 inches (8.66 m) light / 34 feet 2 inches (10.41 m) full load
Complement: 2,600 officers and enlisted
Aircraft carried: 90 – 100 aircraft
towmasters
tugster
Bowsprite 
Christina,
A truly awesome drawing! A moody sense of history – human drama without a human being in sight. It’s one thing I like about ships and boats: they’re redolent of those who imagined, built, lived and worked them. Even when those people are gone, the vessel abandoned, the ghosts persist. Many of Tugster’s photos capture that, too.
Even among “standard” vessel designs, like the T-2 you drew that your father served on, no two are alike. Every one of them is an individual, like the people who brought them to life. Your gift is to capture that powerful feeling!
I wish I could be there for the tugboat races – have always wanted to see them.
your angle here suggests the head of a bull with mighty horns that say . . . don’t mess with me. a one-eyed bull at that. i love it!
Some day I’ll get down there and see Intrepid for myself. Until then, I’ll enjoy the watercolours and marvel at the play of light and shadow.
On the photo I posted of the USS MIDWAY day before yesterday, I noted that all the ports in the bow had deadlights. The MIDWAY wasn’t designed as a carrier, and she was very low in the water. These deadlights must have been installed as a partial keep-the-water-out solution. She was a very wet boat.
Love your drawing, and so sorry I will miss you there.
That was a delightful drawing for the raffle too. Bravo to you.
Great drawing Christina, you can only get that true perspective feeling drawing from life, you got this one perfectly