Lecture: From Sail to Steam to Diesel

From Sail to Steam to Diesel

Date: Wednesday June 7, 2023

In-Person and Virtual via Zoom

$7/person | HRMM Members FREE

Program Topic:

This presentation will focus on material from Hilary Russell’s Book Tugboats and Shipyards: The Russells of New York Harbor: 1844-1962. Hilary will describe high points of his family’s sail lighterage firm, tugboat company, shipyards, iron works and machine shop. Thad Kubis will read from the detailed and colorful first-person narratives of the tugboat captains.

On one level this is an immigrant story of a family’s accomplishments over three generations. On another, it covers the advances in marine technology from the age of sail lighters and Hudson River Sloops, to steam and then to diesel. On a third level, the book chronicles the daily lives of the men on the boats – their work, their diet, their schedules, and their many adventures in New York Harbor, up the Hudson, through the canals, to the Great lakes, along the coast, and the ports from Maine to Virginia.

Presenters:

Hilary Russell has been building and teaching people to construct skin-on-frame construction canoes, kayaks, and rowing craft since 1997. His book Tugboats and Shipyards is the result of fifteen years research. He is also the author of the textbook The Anthology of American poetry: Colonial to Contemporary, a collection of poems Giving up the House, and Building Skin-on-Frame Double Paddle Canoes.

Thad Kubis  - Born in Brooklyn New York, Thad has watched and dreamed of joining in on the many tugs that have sailed the East River passing Noble Street pier, Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Thad, with over 25-years of experience, holds a U.S. Coast Guard 100-ton Master License with a sail and towing endorsement. He is also an ASA certified Keelboat and Catamaran Sailing Instructor

This program is being presented in-person at the Hudson River Maritime Museum's Wooden Boat School and virtually via Zoom.

The Wooden Boat School is located at 86 Rondout Landing, Kingston, NY 12401. If you are attending in-person, we will have a seat reserved for you. 

You will also receive the link to the Zoom meeting in your registration confirmation email. Please save that email to access the virtual lecture.

Members can receive their discount by logging-in. Please note that you must be a current member the date of the event to receive your discount.