Page 29: of Marine News Magazine (December 2005)
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December, 2005 • MarineNews 29 an odd fit if you think about it. Tugs are commercial, after all, and the Intrepid's orientation has been more military.
The museum had a tug, the Hackensack, but sold it.
There's an emphasis on aviation—a new star in the Intre- pid collection is an actual Concorde, the European SST which, bottom line, failed at its mission. The old aircraft carrier faces inland, straight into the plutocracy whose graces it maintains. It might require bunkering or mainte- nance or chandlering services from the harbor at its stern, but those it could pay for. Holding a picnic for the local suppliers was an extraordinary thing 13 years in a row, for a museum of this scope to support. A ringleader was required, and a ringleader it had—until last January, when Capt. Roberts left the Intrepid.
By a stroke of good luck, Capt. Roberts' new post was
Executive Director of the National Lighthouse Museum.
It exists substantially on paper, with a long-standing plan to open shop at the ex-Coast Guard base alongside the ferry docks at St. George, Staten Island. The site includes a recently-rehabbed, thousand-foot-long, recreational pier.
Different sources might give different accounts of what happened next, such as whether Capt. Roberts was draft- ed, whether he volunteered, or whether his direction of the 2005 Tug Races came from a meeting of the minds.
Regardless, approximately six weeks before L-Day, the word came from the museum that despite wishes by some staffers to keep the event at the Intrepid, the final man- agement decision was otherwise. Capt. Roberts said that's what he needed to formally stake his claim.
Then came the exciting part: getting things organized, permits and all, for a large event involving a couple dozen vessels on a holiday weekend in New York Harbor, careening at top speed through one of the main anchor- ages. "Jerry did most of the negotiating," said Chris Roehrig of Roehrig Maritime, among the first to track-down Capt.
Roberts to discuss a reprisal of his earlier role. "Myself and Bert [Reinauer] said we'd assist in any way we could, and Bob Hughes stepped up to the plate with that big deck barge we wound-up using."
Casual conversations over the next week disclosed that
McAllister and K-Sea were also providing support, of the "we'll sponsor the barbecue" variety. There may have been other pledges too, from elsewhere around the harbor —but before there was time to find out, the day itself would be upon us.
About those tugboats rampaging through the anchor- age, the Coast Guard expressed some concern.
The Races' New Look
With the Lighthouse Museum physically the first stop east of the ferry at Staten Island, it makes sense that a race course would run easterly from there. About one mile in that direction is the Navy pier, jutting into the
Narrows from the Stapleton shore, a conspicuous object easy to align to. It would seem a no-brainer for a race course design. Except that the jutting is done into the part of the Narrows called the Stapleton Anchorage, where tankers are known to convene.
Capt. Roberts describes a visit to Coast Guard com- mand where issues were laid-out and dissected, with a promise, as he departed, that he would receive word soon. It was close to immediate, he told us, and the word was that the race course would be fine, as long as there was nobody anchored in the anchorage.
So how many tankers would be cooling their heels off- shore Stapleton on September 3rd, the Sunday before
Labor Day? In the event someone showed-up with nowhere else to go, the races would simply be transposed to the opposite side of the Narrows, over by Brooklyn, a mile or so away.
It would mean that the spectators back at St. George on
Pier 1 would be looking at dots. But the spectators' cause was taking a hit, anyway, as the city's Economic Devel- opment Corporation, Pier 1's owner (and the Lighthouse
Museum's landlord) was asking for reinforced insurance.
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TUGBOATS
We're pretty close to the finish line, with the Lincoln Sea's lead still increasing. Red, white and blue tug, ex-Gotham of the early 1950s, is making her Tug Races debut as the Dorothy Elizabeth. (Photo: Don Sutherland)
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