My late sister and her husband lived (he still does) on a trawler in a small marina on the ship canal in Seattle. Ships of all varieties come in to the commercial marinas for storage and repair. One evening I was sitting on the back deck drowsing and all of a sudden I see what looks like a giant wall heading right at us. I'm screaming.....we're gonna die!!!!!! We're gonna be squashed like a waterbug!!! A giant mothership/canning ship for a Russian fishing fleet has been tugged in for repairs and is being turned around in the widest part of the canal so that it can be pulled stern-first into a repair facility further down. How they got that thing through the locks is beyond me. They must have had a giant shoehorn.
I still haven't gotten a new camera so I can't post a picture, but I built my own 13 ft rowboat out of luan plywood and epoxied fiberglass.. I even built the oars from scratch. I made what I thought was a clever sliding and locking oarlock so anyone could adjust them to their own body size. I'm not a trained boatbuilder, just a good carpenter, but everything worked and the boat is comfortable for three adults. Before my girlfriend died we had a lot of fun rowing around the many ponds and rivers in my area.
The USS Constitution, also known as Old Ironsides, rests in dry dock as water enters the basin to refloat the vessel at Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston, July, 2017, marking the end of restoration work that took 2 years.
I've ridden on a couple of ferries in my life. The only one I was old enough to remember was the General Jubal Early Ferry in Dickerson, MD. I took it during a road rally in my '59 Bugeye Sprite. The first known ferry crossing here was in 1871. I just now discovered that it was another casualty in the "We're too stupid to put history into context" sewer that's backed up across this nation, and was just "renamed" last month.
"Look out Mama, there's a white boat coming up the river .With a big red beacon and a flag and a man on the rail ... .It's got numbers on the side, and a gun,.and it's making big waves" - Neil Young, Powderfinger Coast Guard wooden-hulled 75-foot patrol boat built during Prohibition to help interdict alcohol smugglers. Rum runner Mary, with $175,000 in liquor seized in Dorchester Bay, Mass, 1932 Photo courtesy Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.
My dad worked for the local power company, and sometimes he would take me and my mother (or just me) along with him when he went on a “trouble call” (someone’s power went out). I remember crossing this old ferry across the Pend Oreille River between Sandpoint and Priest River. The ferry would come over, my dad would drive the old line truck onto the ferry (it took up the whole thing), and across the river we went. It was powered by a big paddle wheel on the side. Eventually, the ferry service shut down, but crossing the river on the old ferry With my dad was one of my favorite childhood memories.
Oblique Icebreakers An oblique icebreaker is built with an asymmetric hull that allows it to break ice not only ahead and astern, but also sideways. In this way, the relatively small ship is capable of opening a wide channel in ice. The Baltika - Ice trials, 2015 (Small, medium, and large angle trials start at 4:00 )
Funny you mention floating. When that picture was taken I had just used the truck and a chain to pull it out of the water after it sank. It floats now. I'm glad your boat floats.