A Look Back Into the History of Boatbuilding | Soundings Online

Fire over the falls

Ablaze from stem to stern, the American side-wheel steamship Caroline is propelled over Niagara Falls on a cold, moonlit night in the winter of 1837, a victim of rebellion.

The USS Puritan churns through East River ice while passing under the Brooklyn Bridge in the winter of 1901. The 296-foot monitor was designed as an improvement on the Civil War ironclads, which had transformed naval warfare and made all of the world’s wooden warships at once obsolete.

Easy prey for a U-boat

It’s Aug. 14, 1918, and the five-masted Maine-built coasting schooner Dorothy B. Barrett, a vestige of the 19th century, is in her death throes off New Jersey, the victim of 20th century technology: the German U-boat. “The last we saw of our vessel she was in flames and fast sinking, but whether the Germans had boarded and fired her or she had taken fire from the shells I do not know,” said Capt. William Merritt, who had taken to the dory with his crew of 10 and were picked up by a patrol vessel while rowing ashore.

Fishing in paradise

“Come on, take down your fishin’ pole

and meet me at The Fishin’ Hole.

I can’t think of a better way

to pass the time o’ day!”

The youngster in the broad-brimmed hat, perched with her fish on the running board of an old Jeep, would seem to agree.

Wheeler Yacht’s 83-footers

When Ernest Hemingway took delivery of his 38-foot sportfishing boat, Pilar, in 1934, its builder, the Wheeler Yacht Co., was at the height of its fame. Wheeler’s winged-W logo could be seen on the world’s top fishing grounds.

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A Look Back Into the History of Boatbuilding | Soundings Online

Fire over the falls

A vessel that almost wasn't

Easy prey for a U-boat

Fishing in paradise

Wheeler Yacht’s 83-footers