Tugboat Enthusiasts Society News

If David Boone had disobeyed his father when trying to decide on a career path, he probably would have never honed his talents as a marine artist. As a young man, Boone wanted to follow in his father's footsteps by becoming a Camden, N.J. firefighter - a profession that is as rewarding as it is dangerous. The elder Boone, however had alternative plans for his son, steering him away from the profession he so dearly loved. It was a dangerous time in the early 1960's in Camden, N.J. - the state was in the midst of the tumultuous Watts riots - not exactly a time to start a career as one of the city's bravest. Following the instruction of his father, Boone decided to chase his dream of working for a tugboat company.

Capt. Fred Kosnac was the first tugboater I ever met. If a career can be considered in spiritual or symbolic or abstract terms to be "a life," then Fred Kosnac would rightly be called the patriarch of mine, as a writer and photographer and admirer of tugboaters and tugboats. The matriarch was of course a tugboat proper, the Hay-De, which Capt. Kosnac, based on a phone call out of the blue in 1980, made available to a curious and impressed young journalist. You mean something that works so hard, and has been at it since 1887, is still intact?