August 31, 2007

A sailboat at dusk.

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It looks sweetly out of place.

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IN THE COMMENTS: The boat is a schooner, I'm told, though it might be a ketch.

MORE IN THE COMMENTS: A former crew member stops by to tell us it's the Pioneer. Some info:
The 102-foot, nineteenth-century Pioneer is a sleek but sturdy sailing vessel made of iron and steel (the only iron-hulled merchant ship still in existence, in fact) and topped by a pair of masts reaching 76 feet. Six days a week, the Pioneer shoves off from Pier 16, on the East River at Fulton Street, for a two-hour sail from the South Street Seaport around lower Manhattan. A volunteer crew from the seaport museum skippers the ship (the route varies), and there’s room for 35 passengers. Once you’re out from Pier 16, the motors are cut, the massive canvas sails catch the wind, and you’re clipping swiftly through New York Harbor the way generations of sailors have clipped before you.... Slip past haunting old Governor’s Island (with its empty barracks and Colonial houses), under the Brooklyn Bridge (opened just two years before the Pioneer was built), and around the Statue of Liberty.
And Knoxwhirled says the first photo is so blue it looks Photoshopped. The truth is, I tweak all my photos in iPhoto, but the only thing I did to that one is straighten it a tad. It really was that blue here last night. Then, I decided to tweak it. So, here. A newer and bluer schooner has been sighted in the vicinity of this blog:

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ADDED: No one noticed the allusion. I'm surprised. Someone always notices....

37 comments:

Paddy O said...

The sailboat looks right. It's the city that looks out of place to me.

John Foster said...

Just a quick note to say that I'm really enjoying your posts since the move to Brooklyn.

And have you checked out the spiffy new federal courthouse down Cadman Plaza? (Actually, the place to see is the Bankruptcy Court upstairs in the GPO.)

sean said...

I saw that sailboat myself (my office overlooks the Hudson). There are actually a fair number of sailboats on the Hudson. In fact, there's a whole fleet of sailboats (a little more modern than the ketch in the photo) that comes out most summer afternoons from somewhere south of Jersey City and sails about near Ellis Island and the upper harbor.

Bob said...

Schooner, I think.

Ann Althouse said...

Yeah, "sailboat" didn't seem quite the right word -- but it is a boat and it has sails. I'm waiting for the technical term. Schooner, you say?

Paddy O said...

ketch?

Paddy O said...

Ah, neither ketch nor yawl as I notice the direction it's going.

Foremast and mainmast = schooner

mainmast and mizzenmast (smaller mast aft of the main) = ketch or yawl.

rhhardin said...

Watch for gliders circling over LaGuardia.

Bob said...

You can do a wiki search on "sail plan" and scroll down to see the basic yacht sail plans; this one appears to be a schooner, although there's a small chance it's a ketch.

Triangle Man said...

Definitely a schooner. The mainsail is aft.

Jim Howard said...

Two full sized masts make it a schooner.

A ketch has a much smaller sail on a small mast on the aft end of the hull.

Steve Burri said...

Looks sorta like a junk from Chinatown to me.

Ann Althouse said...

I was watching it while I was talking on the web radio thing and I wanted to call it a junk, but didn't.

Maxine Weiss said...

How difficult would it be to jump ship and cut your losses now? I admire Capricorns for sticking it out and fufilling their obligations, but sometimes you have to know when to fold 'em.

Your body will tell you. What if you get sick? It's horrible being sick in an unfamiliar place. Stress leads to sickness.

I say get out now. I'd have a new respect for you if you found a way to stand in front of that class and tell them your sorry and it's just not for you.

It's kind of a big thing to admit when you've made a mistake.

Does Althouse make mistakes, ever?

hdhouse said...

the commitment ends probably in 8 months with hefty time away to return to madison. she will likely be better for it, the brooklyn kids will get a different slant and ann will be happy to be back to madison and with a fresh outlook. besides, i was in brooklyn 2 times this week and had Thai food to die for each time. How can you not love the place.

sean said...

I think the sail on the after mast is bigger, so that is the mainmast, although both masts are the same height. So the boat is a schooner and I was wrong. When I saw it out my window a day or two ago, it wasn't flying a sail on the foremast.

The Drill SGT said...

The way I learned Yawl's and Ketch's was:

stand at the tiller

1. Reach up and ketch the mast? = Ketch

2. Mast yawl the way back behind you? = Yawl


I'd call this one a Schooner

bill said...

had Thai food to die for each time

Yeah, that E. coli really rips up the insides.

Simon said...

Ann,
If you look real close you'll see that it's nameplate reads Charming Betsy. ;)

birdie bob said...

It appears that our collective naval knowledge is sort of a "ketch as ketch can" method.

Maxine Weiss said...

Are there trees in Brooklyn? I know Althouse insists there are, and I'm waiting for the photo evidence of such.

It's hard to convince yourself that you're having a wonderful time when you're not. Maybe you can keep up the act for a little while.

Perhaps a car, and a drive Upstate....live for weekends when you can get away.

Ann Althouse said...

hdhouse: Recommend your Thai restaurants!

The Drill SGT said...

Hint Ann: say please and drop the !

tony said...

ann...

brooklyn heights. henry street. "noodle pudding". good italian.

and down the street, "the blue pig". homemade ice cream. it's no michael's frozen custard (or kopp's, for that matter) but it's pretty darn good.

tony

Unknown said...

The schooner is the "Pioneer." She sails out of South Street Seaport, on short harbor cruises.

She is crewed by a paid captain and a bunch of volunteers. I used to crew on board her as a volunteer and would highly recommend it.

If you can picture this, I used to climb out halfway to the end of the bowsprit (the angled spar at the bow) to furl the sail, at night, as we ghosted up the East River.

Truly an experience to remember.

hdhouse said...

row row row your boat....

just join in when you feel the need

Paddy O said...

mainesails, your comment is why I like hanging out here on occasion. Never know the things I might learn or the wonderful details that will pop up. I can't even begin to imagine how great it was on that bowsprit.

Maxine Weiss said...

I keep telling Althouse how unhappy she is, but she won't listen.

knox said...

That first photo is so blue it looks photoshopped. Cool.

ricpic said...

This is New York. It's a kvetch.

Ann Althouse said...

Knoxwhirled: I deliberately left that photo raw. That is one of the least retouched pictures I've ever posted. The second one, however, is cropped. It's brighter because there is more sky in it.

lee david said...

ricpic, That was truly funny.

From Inwood said...

ripic

Ruth Ann is the resident punster!

But, hey, yours was quite worthy.

Bob said...

Sounds like maybe a trip on the Pioneer in in Ann's future. :)

Robin Goodfellow said...

The blue tinge is probably because the white balance on your camera wasn't set correctly. "White" under sunlight is not the same as "white" under clouds or "white" under incandescent lamps. Our eyes compensate for it so well and so easily that it's very easy not to realize that there is a difference.

Ruth Anne Adams said...
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mythusmage said...

Anne,

The Star of India here in San Diego is also an iron hulled merchant ship. Unless somebody's spinning "merchant ship" to mean something it really doesn't mean.