Sorry to have left you hanging overnight, but let’s continue the process.  Any guesses on the capacity of this crane?  

 

 

With a tag line attached and hanging from proper rigging and deployed by skilled crew, a canal schooner can be towed quite easily toward the cradles.

Can schooners fly, or is this an illustration of schooning?

In case you ever wondered what Lois McClure‘s underside looked like, voila.  It’s hard to make out here, but the schooner has a centerboard that can drop about 4 feet or so, according to Tom Beardsley, who reported that “For the tow from Vermont to Cayuga, we only put it down by 2 1/2 feet. It does make a big difference in just regular running. If sailing, they drop it down the full distance.”

 

 

 

Supports can be moved and added in as needed.

Art Cohn and Craig Williams both have a distinguished connections with schooner Lois McClure, too long to list here.  However, to provide a little context, Art is author of this and many other books, and Craig is current President of Canal Society of New York State.    Both seem quite relieved that the schooner is secured resting on its cradle. 

As for the water crew, it’s back up the river to the next job.

The next and final leg in Lois McClure‘s journey will happen in the spring.  We plan to document that when it happens. Many thanks to Tom Beardsley, Steve Boerner, and Bill Havens for providing these great photos.

To answer the question about the 32-wheel crane, Mike Riley tells me that the lift capacity of Clark Rigging‘s Tadano is 500 tons.  The counterweight itself weighed 100 tons. The boat weighed 98,000 lbs, aka 49 tons.