Radio LILAC coming soon to a USCGC near you! the next one is saturday, June 29th.

Dress up in your 1960′s wardrobe and come go-go on the welldeck! shop on a ship with the only beer at the pier!

Information for Vendors and photographs, please click here.

…in honor of Radio Veronica.

LILAC is open Thursdays 3:00 to 6:00 PM, Saturdays and Sundays 1:00 to 7:00 PM.

Come visit the Lilac gift shop during ship hours.

1 train to Franklin St. or

2, 3  / A, C  to Chambers St.

She sells ship porn on the sea shore. On LILAC at pier 25, every saturdays and sundays, 1pm to 7pm.

Click here for the re-rigging of Moshulu

In my well-worn copy of The Book of Old Ships, by Henry B. Culver, beautifully illustrated by Gordon Grant (Garden City Publishing Company, Inc, NY © 1935), it says this name may have come from the generic Turkish word “fulk,” meaning a ship.  The Catalan felouques had “masts inclined well forward, and had on each side of the stem, a painted eye after the style of those which ornamented the prows of the ancient Egyptian and Greek ships. The lateen sail with its high pointing whippy yard is much better suited to the lighter and dryer winds of the south than to the heavier airs of the northern seas.”

The “Gold & ambergris…” quote is from Patrick o’Brien. Ambergris is found in the guts of the sperm whale, it smells like poop when fresh, but ages into a sweet scent and was used in perfumes. It made Melville muse that “fine ladies and gentlemen should regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale.” Store High In Transit!

This Sunday, USCGC LILAC (WAGL-227) is turning 80. Come for local crafts, local brews, music and mirth.

LILAC ran on steam, and you can go into her engine room, imagine it running and sounding like the engine room of San Pablo of Sand Pebbles, and peer into the big cylinder where a piston was removed. Keep one hand in your pocket if you venture near the main electric board with the Frankenstein switches. Better yet: don’t go near there.

Lilac has a diesel stove.
When Girlfriend with a Tanker tried to make paella for her SupperClub on her diesel stove, the passing ferries threw wakes that kept sloshing the broth out over the low freeboard of the paella pan. And if that is not difficult enough: there’s no way to control the heat.

One tugboat crew cut rings of varying thicknesses from a discarded steel drum picked up along the KVK, stacking and swapping  metal rings while cooking until done.
“You want those eggs how? hahahaha.”

Class: Lighthouse Tender, Buoy Tender
Launched: 1933
At: Pusey & Jones Shipyard in Wilmington, Delaware

Length: 173 feet, 4 inches
Beam: 32 feet
Draft: 11 feet, 3 inches
Displacement: 1,012 tons
Propulsion:Two 500 HP triple expansion engines supplied by two oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox watertube boilers.
Armament: During WW II, 3 inch 50 cal., two 20mm 80 cal., and two racks of depth charges.

information from Naval Historic Ships Association

 http://lilacpreservationproject.org/home.html

and without anchoring his boat, dove for it.

Upon surfacing with the turtle, he found his boat had drifted away.

He let go of the turtle, but could not catch up to his boat.

He had to swim back home, exhausted and embarrassed, with neither turtle nor boat.

Those who try to do two things at once often accomplish neither.

…a tale from Palau, as retold in Carl Safina‘s Voyage of the Turtle

On June 14, 2011, this 70 ft schooner, Black Seal, brought 20 tons of cocoa beans from the Dominican Republic to Red Hook, Brooklyn.

This is how they did it: no customs report, no bills of lading, no contract with the ILA to lift the 400 bags, and a blank stare when asked for a TWIC. Viva l’esprit of rum running!

Our wise leaders decided that shooting at the handmade three masted schooner was not as good press as welcoming it, so we are happy to have the beans, Mast Bros chocolate, and this WSJ story. Will there be more? Day-o!

(update: the editorial offices of BLOWSPITTLE ink have been informed that all hoops were hastily collected, set up on pier 9A and jumped through: correct papers were obtained-signed-approved-delivered, customs agent procured, docking permitted, stevedores contracted, eyes crossed, teas dotted.)

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On March 9, 2012, this 105 ft schoonerbrig, running under sail power only — no motor at all — set a course from the Dominican Republic to pick up cocoa beans in Grenada bound for New York. They had rum, salt and other Caribbean products for New York, England and the Netherlands. Their voyage plan had Grenada as their last Carribean stop in order to load the cocoa beans last to keep them cooler, forcing the ship to sail from the Dominican Republic against the current and close to the wind, sailing that demanded constant trimming and setting of sails during all watches.

All for naught: the bureaucracy and regulatory fees demanded by our port thoroughly discouraged Tres Hombres, and the cocoa shipment for Grenada Chocolate Company was not to be. The ship had to abandon the stop off at New York, and changed course towards the Azores. Simply no way to gain if you try to follow the rules. Read the ship log’s entry here. Day-o…

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built in 1952 by H. C. Stulchen and Son of Hamburg, Germany

This 191 ft barquentine is the largest tall ship operated by the Indonesian Navy and serves as a sail training vessel for naval cadets and as an ambassador of goodwill for the people of Indonesia: Dewaruci.

She was on her last voyage, nearing NYC for FleetWeek/OpSail 2012 when she ran low on water. She crawled like a thirsty desert traveller along the NJ coast, crying ‘water! water!’ unheeded. She reached the Verrazano Narrows bridge, and approached Sullivans Pier in Staten Island where she would tie up for FleetWeek, two days early. She was denied permission to dock. And was not allow to water.  Anti Terrorism Force Protection  (ATFP): the police forces were scheduled for two days later and could not be deployed so quickly, nor could they be paid for for the two extra days. ATFP does not do boat time.

Desperate, the ship with their crew of 70 students looked for water, but found none. Calls were made and both SUNY Maritime and the United States Merchant Marine Academy welcomed them, eager to host the ship for two days. Fort Schuyler on the Throggs Neck peninsula was just a touch closer than Kings Point, Long Island, so the plan was to sail to SUNY Maritime to tie up and get water.

The ship began the trip up the East River, when the Sandy Hook Pilots noticed a discrepancy with specs and a translation issue. “Air draft” in Indonesian looks like “mast height” or the other way around; the mast from the deck up would have gone under the Brooklyn Bridge, but not with the ship under it.

Dewaruci turned away, and limped back, still parched, to Lower Bay to wait for two days.

For the FleetWeek parade up and down North River, Dewaruci students dressed gaily in blue and white uniforms, and stood atop yards, on shrouds and on bowsprit, saluting a city that was a rather shabby welcoming host. O day.

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Tonight! the Working Harbor Committee presents “Sailing Ships At Work”: the history of sailing cargo ships, the ships that sail cargo today (short part) and what the future may look like.

Ship historian Norman Brouwer, Capt. Maggie Flanagan, and Rick Spilman will be presenting.

Wednesday, 10 April 2013 6 – 9 p.m.
Community Church of New York
40 E. 35th Street
New York, NY 10016

Price — Adults: $25, Seniors (62+) $20
please click here for tickets.

The future: projects like the Vermont Sailing Barge, Hope and Alert, HARVEST, B9 Shipping, and the MARAD initiative of the Hudson River Foodway Corridor will bring  back water transportation of cargo…putting ships back in shipping.

The Working Harbor Committee is not responsible for any of the drivel I write. I just monitor VHF radio and drink in scuttlebutt in bars. And unfortunately, I will not be able to attend the event tonight, but go and have great fun.   ♠   ♥  ♣   ♦

Join the Museum of the City of New York, the Seaport Museum and Friends at Rosanne Cash‘s Fundraising Concert on monday!
Monday, April 8
8:00 pm
New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street, NYC

Please buy tickets here. For a bit of history, read on Tugster, who writes: “Rosanne Cash traces her family to an ancestor who arrived in Salem, MA in 1643 aboard Good Intent.” And a bit more history on Sea Mist, Time, and Sunsets.

Gotta give a shout out to the Homies—Gloucester in da House!

commissioned by Ms. Fist o’ Monkey for gCapt Maritime Monday

We had one million bales of the best Sligo rags
We had two million barrels of stones
We had three million sides of old blind horses hides,
We had four million barrels of bones.
We had five million hogs, we had six million dogs,
Seven million barrels of porter.
We had eight million bails of old nanny goats’ tails,
In the hold of the Irish Rover.

—Shane McGowan, Paddy Rolling Stone

Bring back cargo sailing!!! see you at CMA, those who are attending. I’ll be at the table for the Working Harbor Committee  (blog here) and the Seaport Museum.