I thought the Greenport Boat Yard would soon be a thing of the past. I'd seen the same boats racked up into the air off their keels for years now... rust everywhere. The salt water and salty air hastens the demise of anything it touches requiring constant vigilance of all things metal. The corrugated sheet metal buildings have a uniform patina. The old steel I-Beams that formed the chassis of the original boat cradle turned the shore stones rust colored over the years.
I wasn't prepared to see new heavy-duty track emerging from the sea where the old railroad tracks had been along with a bigger new ship's cradle. It looks as though they can pull much larger boats, 60 or more feet long, out of the sea and into dry dock for repairs to the hulls, keels, rudders and drive shafts.
(click on photos to enlarge)
Each link in the draw chain is a bit more than a foot long.
In this picture one can see the right side of the cradle with numbers inscribed in feet. Any length of timber can be placed in the sockets as required for different hull shapes and sizes. Near the center of the photo is a wire sculpture of an osprey, sometimes called a fish hawk. This sculpture stands atop a steel beam that had once been part of the World Trade Center building 1.
The Mattituck
Salvage and repair yards everywhere have an unmistakable air. I remember seeing farm implement salvage yards on my last trip to the mid-west. I'm reminded of them when I look at this one for boats.
