1,613 Comments for Staten Island Boat Graveyard

Actually, if you want to take better pictures, do so. Otherwise, just enjoy 'em or go spit-polish your underwear.

Well, Parker, you could fly to New York, rent a kayak, find out where the heck this place is, load up your digital camera with lots and lots of batteries and storage, and knock yourself out, now couldn't you?

half empty? or half full?

it's quite possible this was PY-8, the USS Dispatch which was a pressed into service in WW1 as a coastal anti-sub ship...

a Liberty Ship perhaps?

Once a ship is up on a reef like that, you get so many holes in the bottom that it is both incredibly expensive and dangerous to attempt to move it. You have to have a number of powerd pumps on board and to plug or weld each hole. Also, as you move the ship, it will twist and continue to break apart. As it floats, new holes will open. Add time and deterioration of the hull structure and you can forget it.

Finally, once it's been there a while, it gets so deeply buried that it becomes even harder to move.

Unless it is a hazard to navigation or to the environment , I don't think it will get moved. The only way to remove this would be to cut it up a piece at a time by hand and haul it away ... Bangladesh style. And there, the ships dry out at low tide. I don't know if this one does.

<i>It's an 8 cylinder diesel & by looking at the exhaust & other parts & also being around log trucks(6cyl. diesels) all my life, the engine dimensions ar going to be approx 5-6' long by approx 4' high by approx 2' wide</i>

Hate to break it to you, but most ships use diesels significantly more powerful than those in logging trucks. Think locomotive rather than automotive.

I also disagree with Carl. The subject was dark. The photo renders it beautifully. The detail is more than sufficient. Whether it was the original lighting or use of the Photoshop 'Shadows' function, I think he got it right.

If I had my 'druthers, I'd shoot these ships near sunrise or sunset, for more dramatic light and less contrast, but I can't imagine a much better job being done given the time of day.

I'd love to get in here with a rowboat and a wide angle lens!

Never mind ... I just saw the next frame. It's a subchaser or minesweeper all right.

It's iron sheathing on a wooden hull. I wonder if it's a ferry and the iron plates were to protect the bow from repeated impacts at the dock. The big low rubbing strakes on the side also make me think ferry.

I think the wheel thing is a reel for firehose. It's an incredible site!

Mott, these photos are incredible. Thank you so much for saving these for history.

I don't know, but it's VERY OLD. that style of bow went out of fashion before WW2. Also note the riveted plates, as opposed to the welded plates on the post WW2 wrecks.

A wooden hull! I love it

As I said, this was a freighter (at a guess) which was so badly damaged in a fire that it was uneconomic to repair (though that isn't always the case with ships that burn). On the other hand, some of the tugs, ferries and WWII boats in this yard don't look that badly damaged (prior to sitting in the sludge for 40 years that is!) and it surprises me that they aren't still in use or at least mothballed - boats (especially well-built steel ones like these) surely don't come cheap...