Kaaterskill Ketch

[Matusalem]

Dutch in New York, who woulda thunk?

Painting says: Kaaterskill Ketch, Hudson River 1645

[Dutchman]

just driven through- never stopped.

oh you mean the paining? Interesting. obviously a heck of a tide swing to leave him on the hard like that. Poor main is all out of trim as well. atleast he can walk to shore. with a hull as flat as hers, i would expect to see lee boards. It is a beautiful painting though.

I wonder what the story is? Sun is setting and she has obviously been aground for a few hours. Owner coming ashore, but from what? Pilings in the background show an old landing maybe? perhaps destroyed by a winter ice storm?

[JoshuaRed]

Dunno. Painting appears to be late 19th or early 20th century....so I guess it depends on the painter's knowledge of Hudson Valley history!

[DocF225]

I live on the Hudson and we get huge tidal swings from time to time. I used to crew a local dinner cruiser and it wasn't uncommon to depart on the outgoing tide with the gangway on a 30 degree up slope and return 3 hours later with the gangway at a 30 degree down slope. I used to joke to the passengers "You'll notice somebody let some water out of the river while we were out".

The village of Kaaterskill isn't too far North of me. On the River it's about 60 miles by land about 70.

This whole area was explored and settled by the Dutch. Lots of places with -kill in the name. I recall my Grandfather saying kill is the Dutch word for creek or stream.

Doc

[Coastie04]

I've seen paintings before of small fishing boats beached to unload their cargo, especially places like Nova Scotia and the likes. As for the main being out of trim, you don't want it filling properly when you're trying to take the boat in for a soft landing. Furthermore, when beached, you don't want there to be a lot of stress on the boat. However, with canvas sails, they were often hung up to dry, so that might be why the main was left up, or was re-set in what seems to be relative calm weather. The anchor in the foreground in even shallower water (with either sand or mud bottom) supports my theory that the boat was intentionally grounded and the captain wanted the boat to stay there. Just my two cents worth.

Coastie

[Coastie04]

OK, here's some pictures I found. This is a fishing boat beached on a beach in France.

"A painting showing two fishing boats beached at Villerville, a little fishing village west of Honfleur, France. They are waiting for the tide to lift them off the narrow beach. The larger vessel is probably a Le Havre trawler. Two men with fishing baskets stand in the shallows, probably looking for mussels, and a third is working on the side of the boat in the shallows. A fourth man works on the boat with his back to the viewer. Other shipping can be seen on the horizon. The artist has created an image of calm and tranquility."

"Three fishing boats, two being sprit-rigged and flying the Dutch flag, are shown on a mud bank. Merchant and other shipping is visible in the distance to the right on a calm sea. The beached vessel on the right has a sail raised and an anchor resting on the mud flats. Several fishermen standing on the mud are occupied with the boat on the right, two on the far right moving a wooden barrel probably laden with mussels. The larger boat to the left of centre contains three men, with another standing alongside busily engaged with it. An anchor rests at his feet. On the far left another small fishing craft has an anchor visible and nearby a man collects mussels. Behind the boats is a coastline with dunes on the left and the contours of a town visible in the centre."

"This narrative depicts a collier brig lying aground on a beach in shallow water, at low tide. Coal is being 'whipped' out of her hold in baskets, using the large iron pulley suspended from a jeer or whip footed on her deck, and tipped down a chute over her side into a cart waiting in the water below. A man mounted on a cart-horse in the central foreground carries a metal bucket of coal in his right hand and a long horse-whip over his shoulder (possibly a visual pun on the process being shown), from the ship towards the cart on shore to the right, which is waiting its turn to be loaded. The horses are all have colourful ruff-like padding of some sort behind their working collars, in blue yellow or red. The ridden horse also has a red cockade on the headband of its bridle. Other shipping has been depicted in the distance, the vessel to the right apparently being another brig, though over-scaled for the type.

The scene shown is a frequent subject in coastal marine art of the late-18th and early 19th centuries, especially in watercolours and drawings. The north-eastern, cat-bark brigs employed in the coal trade were capacious, flat-bottomed and solidly built precisely for the purpose of 'taking the ground' to load and unload in this way, in places without deep-water quay installations."

Coastie

[Raphael Misson]

I really like that last picture. It reminds me of an early ore dock.

This is way OT, but there's an abandoned ore dock in downtown Marquette, MI that I've always liked. When I first fell in love with it, someone who lived there told me the city owned it and they'd probably sell it to me for a dollar if I could figure out what to do with it. I made many grand (and unworkable) plans and finally reconciled myself to never owning an ore dock. I guess there are currently plans by the city to turn it into a sort of tourist thing.

Isn't that cool? (Sorry for going so far OT, the chute just reminded me of that.)

[Dutchman]

a dock full of 'ores! i can barely handle a wench.

sorry, couldn't help myself..........