Fireboat!

We recently went to the Tugboat Round-up Festival in Waterford. This annual event is one of our favorites of the fall season.

This year we were thrilled to see the John J. Harvey Fireboat there from New York City. Launched in 1931, it was retired in the mid 1990's but brought back into service temporarily during 9/11.

Down in the engine room was exciting, even for me. It was so different than most tugboats. There were actually 5 engines used as generators and pumps.

There is no battery to start the engines, so they use compressed air. Plus these two huge electric motors, that look like gigantic motorcycle stators, turn the propeller shafts.

Gauges and pumps were everywhere...

Every hour, on the hour, they fired up the hoses and did water demonstrations. Dave just happened to be down in the engine room (for the 2nd time 😉) when the engineer was getting ready to start the demonstration, so he was enlisted to help with the pumps!

It can pump 18,000 gallons of water a minute. Now that is impressive, as was the whole ship. What a treat to tour it.