Page 19: of Marine News Magazine (February 2006)
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Named after their logo, the boat might naturally appeal to its ex-owners when oil-towing requirements came up, and there was the Cross Harbor Railroad. "The
Peg was not built as a railroad boat, with her 900HP compared to most railroaders at around 1600." But one of the reasons for choosing this boat had been weight, of which the large hull had plenty. "It's an intuitive thing, but I was used to old-fash- ioned boats where weight versus hore- spower was significant. With a boat like this on a carfloat, you don't make as much speed, but when you stop, it stops. We towed for them for five years. Our volume then was twelve to eighteen hours per day, five days a week."
Beyond the normal vicissitudes facing the one-tug company would come one overarching, "The boat started failing. She was not practical to run any more," with- out remakes beyond economic sense. She was a single-screw tug which would now ban her from oil, pushing her ninth decade. But also, the sciences of records- keeping were well-developed across the lifetime of this boat. If someone wanted to create a reminder of what things used to be like and they wanted to use this boat, where should they start the recreation?
Can't be 1907, not completely. A lot of her hull dates from that year, but there's no way to get the steam plant back. And diesel conversions change a lot of things around a tugboat besides just the motor.
And dieselization came to the ex-Socony 16, then the John E. McAllister, in that heyday year of 1953. She was an upgrade to the modern tugboat at the time Ike became president.
So she is a lesson in versatility and adaptability, in various ways, across waves of time and purpose. Perhaps that could be an inspiration to find staring in your face during lunch on the esplanade.
Some folks said let's see if we can keep the noble old vessel going.
Restoration in Paper, Rock and Steel
Plenty of people believe there are good reasons to preserve old vessels, though funds for the purpose are not boundless. "
Gerald Weinstein was a supporter of great generousity from the beginning," says
Capt. Hepburn, though there are public sources too, a pie into which a number of interested New Yorkers had already looked. Several offered the newcomer a plate and a fork. Applications were filed and a few grants and loans approved.
Involved were New York State Depart- ment of Parks, Recreation and Historic
Preservation, the New York Landmarks
Conservancy, the New York Community
Trust, The Hyde and Watson Foundation, and Abraham and Lillian Rosenberg
Foundation.
The Tug Pegasus Preservation Project having found its board, it got its 501 (c) 3 and listing on the National Register in short order. The funds came with specific instructions regarding their disbursements such as, in a large recent instance, the hull. "The hull was not sound, it was extremely worrisome." That was in the beginning, before arrangements were made for John
Garner's lift at Tottenville to bring the ves- sel ashore. It meant making sure even the latest Travelift at Mr. Garner's could han- dle the weight. "After Morris Canal, we went to Richmond Terrace. During that time, we removed an estimated twenty tons of Belgian block from the engine room. Ken's Marine was very helpful."
That was sufficient for lifting ashore, although once in the yard "we cut a hole in the side of the boat to remove another estimated fifteen tons of block from the fo'c's'l. It's hard to keep a bilge clean if it's full of damned rocks!" But also, uncover- ing things means finding what was beneath. Not always a happy discovery. "We weren't able to audiogauge a lot of the stuff under the cement, and around the cement line some of the steel had eroded to almost nothing. Charlie Deroko was our repair consultant, and we took our steel repair from ABS standards."
The amount of steel needed was consid- erable. "About 900 square feet on the hull -- the whole sheer strake, and all strakes in the midsection of the boat, and a fair amount of the counter. Also, 500 square feet of bulkhead replacements. We had four bulkheads in various states of disre- pair, one completely wasted, so we rebuilt the entire thing. Other bulkheads were 10 percent to 75 percent shot."
The hull had a riveted construction in 1907, but "our timeline starts in 1953, and welding was the method then in use." The machinery, in the meantime, was in pretty
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