Silly Puddy Gallery

( This whole thing is silly )

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Developing site...photos, drawings, and "off-the-top-of-the-head" "messages" only for experimentation. Nautical flair incidental. Instructions for getting started
Updated August 2004
Setting up, and using Outlook Express
Making a "signature" for your outgoing email
Scanning 35MM Slides Cheaply
Beveled Photos And Drop Shadows
With Sound Link Samples
Convert photos to look like old newsprint
How To Make Watermarks

When I first started this project, I had no idea of what I'd say, or use it for, and I am still not sure. Experimenting with how to make additional pages, I just said anything to fill them, and called them "messages". Here's all that old stuff in one place...making buttons for all those pages ( msgs ) was dumb.

5) Old Brooklyn Ferries

10) This Retired Seaman's View

1) Presumption

Nothing could be said better, than when it is said by

SLOWBELL

SLOWBELL gets to the point, and speaks plainly.

2) Handling the EOT

When "handling" the telegraph, do not jerk the handle, but move it smoothly, staying within the segment ( ahead, or astern ), unless moving from segment ( ahead, or astern ) to segment. Traverse the whole segment when moving within it, to make the signal heard at the other end...don't just move for instance from half to full, move the handle up to slow, and then down to full. Don't lean on the telegraph, it's bad for the shine.

3) Windlass

Do not leave your windlass in gear except when heaving around, or lowering the hook in gear. When at anchor, and fetched up, just secure the brake, don't set the pawl. When secured for sea, use only the brake, paul, and devil's claw. Remember, if you lose the plant while at anchor, or any other time, and want to pay out some more, or drop the hook, if the windlass is engaged you are up the creek. Also note that backing off the motor to relieve the clutch don't work...there's a bloody brake on the motor too, and it takes juice to release it.

4) Soogying

Before soogying, make sure the deck, and surrounding machinery, etc. is protected from splatter. If using TSP, make sure the water it's mixed in is good and hot. If using a wooden bucket, check for leaks, and make sure the handle isn't rotted away. If using sand-soap, use a heavy canvas as a cloth. Wet the bulkhead down from top to bottom with clear water, and start soogying from the deck up. If you start at the top, you will streak the lower part, and never get the streaks out, and you'll be in for it with the mate, or chief. In case of splatter, make sure anything that might get splattered is wet. When finished scrubbing, rinse with fresh, clear water, and swab the surrounding deck. Don't ever throw away the canvas...save it for the next job. Use the sand-soap until it can't be held anymore. If there be any water left in the bucket, check with the R/O, he may want to bathe.

5) Old Brooklyn Ferries

Shhhh...the best kept secret in the world. If it existed today, it would be listed as a prime target.
As world famous in its day as Coney Island was, it serviced millions...if you visited Brooklyn, you most likely rode it. Untold thousands of photographs were taken of it, and its slip, and dock, many more from its decks. If only for the reason that I get the occasional request for a photo of the ferry, I wouldn't be thinking of it now, but in my quest for photos from acquaintances, I come up with just one of each...the old steam side-wheeler, and its replacement - the Electric Ferries, and embellished ( colored ) both of them just for effect. I made the animated Side Wheel Ferry myself.
Spending weeks surfing the web, I found bits, and pieces of documention, but none very comprehensive. However, what I present here should satisfy those who hold a soft spot in their hearts for the 69th Street Ferry; Brooklyn - Staten Island Ferry; Electric Ferries; Bay Ridge Ferry; or whatever else name they went by.

Oh...about the sign above...if you're a Brooklynite, or former one, which means you're still one, you may remember it...I don't, though I lived only a few blocks from where today just one still exists. I "edited" it a bit...cleaned it up...the photo of it, with its location can be found by searching, using: "69th street ferry".

Way back in the early part of this century ferries like the one to the left, painted box-car red, steamed from Brooklyn's 69th St. Pier to St. George, Staten Island. It only cost a nickle as a pedestrian, and if you had a car, just a few cents more. They were later replaced in the early forties by new boats, which were painted dark green. Known as "Electric Ferries", and sometimes sporting that name in large white letters, otherwise "Brooklyn - Staten Island", they were built by General Ship & Engineering Works, East Boston, Mass., in 1941 for Electric Ferries, Inc., of New York City. Their dimensions were: displacement 569 tons; length: 171'9"; beam: 54'; draft. 9'6"; did 13 knots; and were Diesel Electric. The company ran seven boats: The Tides, The Narrows, Hamilton, E.G. Diefenbach, Hudson, Gotham and St. George. In April of '42 ( during WW2 ), the Navy acquired the Hudson from the company, renamed it Gould Island, and gave it the designation of YFB-31. It was returned to the company in May of '46. The ferry service ended a few weeks after the bridge from Brooklyn to Staten Island came into service in November of '64.

The ramp...mustn't forget the ramp down, and up which the cars, and pedestrians embarked, and debarked the ferry. A substantial thing, constructed of heavy timbers, and which was adjustable in order to accomodate the freeboard of the ferry, and the tide conditions. It was also to the ramp which the ferry moored with two lines...one port, and one starboard. You have to remember the clanking of the pall on the rachet gear when the deckhand spun the large, spoked wooden wheels in order to take a strain on these lines...which by the way had a hook spliced into it's end...the hook placed into the padeye on the deck of the ferry. Yes, yes...when that wheel stopped spinning, and the clanking of the pall stopped, the line was taught, and the ferry fast. To cast off was to simply release the pall, and un-hook the ferry...simplicity in the sublime.

The Ferry Terminal in my early days remained simple, and stayed that way until its demise. The small sign in the photo says: "THE SHORT ROUTE 69th St. FERRY TO STATEN ISLAND & OUTERBRIDGE + GOETHAL'S BRIDGE TO NEW JERSEY".
Today the new dock stands without a hint of its former glory.

"and you could hear the tugs in the harbor chugging and the deep ooooo from their whistles floated across the bay and rolled down 2nd Avenue and even the ferry's mooring winch could be heard, when it was quiet and still, clanging a ferry into the slip and it was a drag of a night"
Last Exit To Brooklyn
Hubert Selby, Jr.

"As a deck hand, I had certain jobs to do. In the slip there was a wheel on each side which had a rope with a hook on it. I would stand on the side edge, holding onto the railing, and reach in and grab the big hook and hook it on to the eyelet. Then I�d jump off into the slip when it was close enough and go in and crank it in. There was a big winch with four-inch wheels and once I got it in tight I�d dog it to hold it there. Then the guy at the slip would lower the slip down or raise it up, whatever was necessary according to the tide. Of course, there was a guy on the other side of the ferry who did the same thing I did. That�s why they needed two deck hands."
Riding the Ferry and Other Adventures
Rober Hazel

Click Here for photo of 69th Street Pier showing the Ferry Slip, and a Liberty Ship moored on the pier's north side, and some further comments at the bottom of the page.

Click Here for photo of a Ferry Ramp showing the Mooring Winch, hawser, and hook...a rare find.

6) Styrofoam Cups

Back when styrofoam cups were popular, and not considered environmentally unsafe, you had to be careful at night to remember where you left it. I am talking of course at night, in a darkened wheel house underway. I had on one occasion a second mate who would chew tobacco, and use his cup for a spittoon. If there is one thing you don't need, is a slug of that stuff. More on spittoons later.

7) Night Orders

There is no standard, or guide for what Captains considered necessary to put in their "night orders", nor should there be. I have seen some night orders two pages long, and I have seen the "one liners" like one skipper wrote night after night..."Follow the red line.". The ship was a liner - so the same charts were used each trip. Charts being considered expensive - $1.00 - they were used until they fell apart, this particular skipper drawing in the course lines using a red ball point pen. Over the years, after reading many night orders, I came up with the following, which was pretty standard:

"Observe Standing Orders, and Rules of the Road. Give all shipping a Wide Berth. Keep a Good Lookout. Follow the course line as plotted, allowing leeway as needed. Call me if at any time in doubt."

I very seldom left a call, being an early riser anyways, unless landfall was expected early, which I very seldom allowed to happen. Most always I scheduled arrivals, and departures, dockings, and undockings, around my sleep schedule, and meal hours....After all, I ran all my ships as it were my private yacht.

8) Derby Brown

This is Derby Brown, my YorkyPoo pal.

Two years old next April, and ready to

stand lookout on any vessel traversing

the English Channel in fog, rain, snow,

or any other condition similarly restri-

ting visibility. Licensed also for keeping mates awake.

9) Whistle Sounds

Click Button to sound whistle

Old Fashioned Whistle

Large Ship's Whistle

Ship's Air Whistle

Small Vessel's Whistle

Queen Mary's Whistle

Graphic is of actual whistle assembly of the old Queen Mary loaned to the new Q M 2 do late in 2003. She will be the world's largest passenger ship at 150,000 gross tons.
It weighs one ton, and would stand six feet if stood vertical. Said to be heard ten miles distant without bothering passengers on deck.

10 and final ) This Retired Seaman's View

A retired seaman's view. Not

much water, but yet some.

Just enough to day dream by.

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GALLERIES