Anyone Want to Restore a Tugboat?
You'd think it would be easy to start a tugboat museum. First, get an old tugboat. Clean-up some rust with a pad of coarse steel wool, slap-on a coat of paint, and presto, you're ready to sit in the booth and sell tickets. Everyone would applaud your efforts because, first, everyone loves tugboats and all they represent - solid construction and earnest purpose, hard work and benevolent contributions to civilization. And second, because old tugboats, all spiffied-up, are handsome sights, an alluring environmental decoration wherever they're found. And third, because the design of tugboats, like most of society's tools, has undergone great change, and the old ones are dying-off fast. You'd think everyone would support your labors at preserving a noble cultural heritage.
What is in John Garner's Pocket
You don't really know a boat until she's hauled. Plying her trade on the water, her best half's submerged out of sight. We think we recognize her - "oh, there's Odin," or "Shelby Rose," or "Twintube" - but what are we seeing? The lines of the deckhouse, the shape and placement of the wheelhouse, the arrangement of the stacks? These are the parts known as the superstructure - "super," in this case, meaning simply "upon." It's a little like saying we recognize someone by his hat. The boat's defining structure starts at the main deck and goes downward from there. What little we see of it is low on the horizon. There's the deck's line, along with a smattering of bulwarks.
