EXCERPTS FROM THE DAILY LEVEL # 6

Sunday, September 6 , 1998

DOUBLE SCREW

Sea Level, N.C., July 28, 1998

....on the New York side of the Staten Island Ferry, this lady was going to commit suicide, she's down on the Battery....and this young sailor met her and he talked her out of it...he said, 'God, you're too young for that, and too beautiful to do that...I'm leaving for Europe tomorrow, and I'll stow you in the ship and you could start a new life there'...this was just many, many years ago....so, he took her aboard the ship and stowed her in a lifeboat....and every night he would bring her a....sandwich and something to drink, and they would make mad love all night... well, after about three weeks of this, the captain was making an inspection and he found the young girl in the lifeboat ...and he asked her 'what are you doing here?' and she told him the story...'a sailor just stowed me away here and he's going to eh.... he brings me a sandwich and something to drink every night and we make love all night, he screws me all night long'...he looks...he says, 'young lady, he sure was screwing you, 'cause this is the Staten Island Ferry'.....

(Horace Twiford)

NOTES FROM THE PILOT HOUSE

St. George Ferry Terminal, Staten Island, August 17,1998.

Captain Eddie Squire on board of the 'J.F.K.': ...years ago, some of them just kept on loading the boats, people had to push, everybody would get on...now they have a system there, they say: 'We have a full load', they close the doors and they're very good...you can see as the boat is loaded, the deckhands are watching...they say, 'Okay, it's filling on the saloon deck', they check the bridge deck, they let me know when I got a full boat...you know, this business is a science, it's an art...the 'Barberi' and the 'Newhouse' can be really loaded up to six-thousand passengers...only three or four times in their life they had the full load of passengers on board...we had a snowstorm one year when I just started here, I was deckhand...it was winter nineteen eighty-three... the storm was really, really bad, and the 'Newhouse' was brand new, and I tell you, it was some sight...I already held my license, and I was waiting for my turn in the wheelhouse...I was deckhand and they had me up on the bridge deck, and the captain said, 'Well Eddie, you're gonna get a real taste of rough harbor water!...You see that water washing on the bow?'...that boat was packed, the biggest load of people I've ever really seen...there was nothing dangerous either, but you could feel how packed she was, so they let me handle the boat, and said, 'get the feel of it when she's carrying that many people'...oh, but it's all very safe ... the captains, mates, deckhands and engineers here have varied backgrounds... many sailed on the big ships, some come from ocean going vessels and a lot of guys from the tugs...and I myself, I kept many photo albums and memories of the great passenger ships and freighters of the world, like those of the Grace Line and the U.S. Lines, which I sailed on...right now, the Staten Island Ferry has seven boats and thirteen captains... we have day crews, night crews, and midnight crews, it's a massive operation....it's safe, reliable and efficient...everything on these boats has a purpose...the slips, the aprons 1) and the bridges, everything is designed for purpose, everything is meant for these long hard runs and continual use....like the sides of these boats ... they're called rub rails, they're always rubbing against the wood of the slip...the timbers come from South America...they are meant to soften the landing while we're dealing with the currents ...but the boats are getting older, someday they'll need to be replaced...I think they've got something new going... the design would be identical to the Kennedy Class ...these are two-ninety-seven feet long...they are built purposely for these slips, they were the biggest we could get, that was it...so, the new boats we're working on, would be similar design, same type of pilot houses, but they will probably have variable pitch propellors, in other words: while the shaft is continually turning, the blades, just like helicopter blades, can be adjusted, so you don't have to stop to reverse...the 'Barberi' and the 'Newhouse' have cycloidal propulsion turntables with vertical blades on each end...I don't know if they want to put thrusters on them ....and...the rudder pins will be gone .... you know, the pins on the end of the cardeck? ... when we leave, that pin has to lock the forward rudder in the direction we're going and the off-shore pin lifted up for the working rudder...sometimes when we come in here and the currents are very strong, we use the rudders to maneuver when we go into the tie up slip...we lift both pins and free both rudders, so they can almost be used as thrusters...that's what we call a 'two pin job'...on the new boats they will have something to replace the traditional rudderlock pins...but whatever happens, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, rain or shine, the Staten Island Ferries will ply the Bay...

1) apron = loading ramp