[Leica] Re: Old boats

[lrzeitlin at optonline.net (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

On Aug 21, 2007, at 3:27 PM, lug-request@leica-users.org wrote:

> On Aug 21, 2007, at 10:56 AM, Leonard Taupier wrote:
>
>>
>> Ric, many of your shots show boats in different stages of decay.
>> Are there special places where these boats are brought? Like a
>> junkyard. Or are many just abandoned and allowed to disappear
>> naturally?
>>
>
> My experience is that wooden boats just sink and die. Steel may make
> it to salvage yards. <http://tinyurl.com/ywmrwx>
>
> It may be related to what an old public health friend of mine called
> the "hookworm culture" of the South.


It is true, as Ric says, that old wooden boats are often left to rot  
but steel boats are cut up for scrap. Scrap steel has some intrinsic  
value but rotting wood costs more to haul away than it is worth. Most  
major waterways have a collection of old wrecks, boats abandoned by  
their owners and left to decay on the foreshore.

But it wasn't always the case. In New England and parts of the  
Atlantic Coast old wooden boats were often burned to salvage the  
metal parts and fittings from the ashes. There are similar ship  
breaking yards that retrieve salvageable components from steel ships  
before cutting up the hulks for scrap. One of the biggest in the  
northeast is in Arthur Kill, on the south west side of New York's  
Staten Island. If you want to photograph boats rusting in peace,  
that's the place to go.

It is a romantic theory that boats have a long lifetime. Workboats,  
whether wood or steel, are regarded as tools of a trade. From fishing  
boats to ocean liners they are designed for a limited economic life  
span, utilized fully, then replaced or sold to a less demanding  
service when repairs and maintenance make them too costly to run at a  
profit. Modern commercial boats are often designed for a 30 year life  
span, naval craft a bit longer. At the end of his navy career, my son  
was in charge of decommissioning the Jewett class of battle cruisers,  
salvaging the out of production parts from the older craft to keep  
the newer ones running for a few more years. It was, on a larger  
scale, sort like keeping LTM Leicas in mechanical repair.

The designed life span of some boats was, in many cases, a good deal  
shorter. PT boats, such as John Kennedy's PT109 were not expected to  
survive more than two missions. Of the hundreds made during WW2 only  
about half a dozen still exist. The fabled Yankee clipper ships were  
made of rot prone pine. They were intended to turn a profit by their  
third voyage. The clipper ships were driven so hard, and trips to the  
Far East were so hazardous that most never made it to their tenth  
birthday. Why build a ship to last if you expect it to die young?

Larry Z