The Savannah morning news., 1904-01-31
BY ALFRED MINER.
Copyright. 1904. by T. c. Mcclure.

New York is a great city, but it is
behind Russia in one thing, at least.
1t is the second biggest port in the
world and it hasn't an ice breaker in
its entire water area, from Sandy
Hook to the limit of tide water far up
the Hudson river
Every winter New Yorks fleets are
feed up for time; and then the har-
Dor presents scenes like the old wood
engravings showing an Arctic scene
full of ice and ships picturesquely
placed in precarious positions in prom
inent parts of the iciest parts of the
picture.
Then, when transatlantic liners and
barges and ferryboats and scows and
swearing tug boats are all locked and
inter-locked, and everywhere from the
slxyscrapers the eye can see black hulls
sticking hopelessly fast in white foes.
marine New York vows that before
next winter il will possess an ice
breaking ship that shall out Ermack
the Russians Ermack, and keep the
harbor open.
But the spring comes and the ice
breaker, and the next winter seems so
far away, and presently the frost
comes and turns his white key once
more and locks New York up neatly.
1t is a delightful situation for the tug
boat
The New York tug boat wasn't built
to be an ice breaker, but then she
wasn't built for most of the uses to
which she is devoted by her captain
and owners, with a simple faith in her
timbers and engines.
So the New York tug boat becomes
an ice breaker as soon as the big, slow
ly-heaving fields mass themselves
around fifteen or twenty miles of city
shore. Sometimes, indeed, they become
ice massers," If one can believe every
thing that may be heard along New
York's 'Barbary Coast" when a raving
skipper, who has just paid from $50 to
$500 to tug to extricate him from the
ice, laments aloud and buys drinks for
all who would hear his tale of the pi-
ratical sea.
The foe never was big enough yet to
scare New York tug boat, A bob
bling thirty-foot tug will butt hopefully
at five thousand-foot foe, splitting at
1t like wild cat. A miserable little
funt OF tug that consists of nothing
except a smokestack and a screech.
VIII hurl itself at a field that holds a
two-story house of a ferryboat tightly
in its cold grip; and the ferryboatful
OF passengers will yell "Hurrah!" for
they know the capabilities of the chol-
eric little craft
Smash! and the little tug bounds
backward like a rubber ball. Smash!
and the foe complains, just a little.
Hoo, hoo, hooi" Smashi and a quick
eye can see black water show for lust
an instant through a momentary
crack in the foe. And then, Smash!
Rip! Bang! and the tug is showing
not and ferryboat bodily along, till the
outfit begins to come apart.
Now, when 200-foot steamship, full
or vanity and pride starts to go down
to the sea and pleasantly stops quite
dead and still, with a half mile or so
OF blocks of ice neatly fitted around
her, the tug that can cut out a way
for her is worth ready money on the
spot, and the knights Grant of the
harbor know it.
SO there is a race against tide, time
and foe to tackle that big ship.
Sometimes the tugs are so eager
that they butt one another instead of
the foe, ramming head first like stays,
till one wins a way in.
Then the captain of the big ship
counts some of his money for the last
time.
Five hundred dollars" said one tug
captain to a ship off the Erie Basin
No" replied the captain with the
Indignation of the thrifty Scandinav-
ian, when applied to for large sums
on the nail.
Very well. Hoot! loot" replied the
tug boat man.
He went away ostensibly-very os-
tensibly; and the ice foes looked APP
pallingly thick and large when he be-
gan to disappear.
There was no other tug around The
captain of the big ship scanned the
foes. He scanned the tug. He decided
with a sigh that the foe was five hum
dred dollars thick.
And in one hour that tug had the
ship out of her tight berth, in which
she couldn't move an inch with all her
mighty engines.
The tug is an ingenious and divers
in its ways of breaking ice as it is
in all its other concerns of life
Sometimes it butts. Sometimes It
smashes into foes with the screw.
Sometimes it hammers them and splits
them open-a Ratchet striking with the
force of a locomotive and making a
split half mile long.
Sometimes it will lie against a foe
and chug-chug peacefully and con-
tentedly till the foe makes up it's mind
10 move on.
But funniest of all is it when the tug
hurls itself on the top of a field of ice
and falls through it.
Nothing but a New York tug could
do it, or would If it could
First. all the water tanks in the
stern are pumped full till the tug
sticks up in the air in front like
classic horse. The engine begins to
eplutter and weep and the boiler
threatens every moment to burst.
With a whoop the rampant tug
charges the foe. rears, bucks and
jumps on top of it.
Floes sink under the sliding bow
Floes uprear on each side. Cracks
zigzag in all directions. And when
the tug settles again, she is i'm the
midst of a bobbing, tumbling, splinter
ed mass of what just before was solid
ice.
But even a tug cannot always beat
foe.
There was a fine old foe one day
that came majestically down the Hud-
son. and slid gently and smoothly into
the swirl of meeting tides off the Bat
terry. In a trice it had blocked the
passage.
Then the tug. boat Scandinavian
came snorting UP from Brooklyn, and
not choosing to steer out of the way
as IL might have done. It gave a few
angry grunts and charged the ice
much as a bull would butt into "A herd
of sheep. Up went the Scandinavian
bow. but this time the ice refused to
break. The tug remained in the un-
dignified position of a COW with her