Tugboat & the Ambrose at the South Street Seaport, July 2006

The tug, HELEN MCALLISTER, ex GEORGETOWN, ex ADMIRAL DEWEY, was built in 1900 at Port Richmond, N.Y. for the Berwind-White Coal Co. The tug spent the next 55 years as the stalwart of the Berwind-White fleet, towing coal barges to bunker the myriad of ships in New York Harbor. As coal bunkering diminished, the tug was sold to a tug operator in Charleston, South Carolina. In the 1980s, McAllister Towing and Transportation Co. acquired the tugboat company in Charleston, and renamed the tug the HELEN MCALLISTER. She continued to work in the ports of Charleston and Georgetown, South Carolina. In 1992, with its tall steam stack rebuilt, the vessel was brought to New York Harbor and used to help dock tall ships during Op Sail at the South Street Seaport. In 2000, McAllister Towing donated the HELEN MCALLISTER to South Street Seaport Museum.

When she was launched as the ADMIRAL DEWEY in 1900, the HELEN MCALLISTER represented the very latest in technology. Originally powered with a triple expansion compound steam engine, developing 900 HP at a working pressure of 150 psi, the tug was repowered after WW II with a 1930's Fairbanks Morse diesel engine. Of the 500 tugboats that at one time worked in New York Harbor, the HELEN MCALLISTER is the only remaining tug of that generation. With her characteristic tall stack and original bell system to transmit orders to the engineer, she reminds us of an age that takes us back to the 19th century.

Lightship Ambrose served as the sentinal beacon marking Ambrose Channel, the main shipping channel for New York Harbor, from 1823 until the station was replaced by Ambrose Lightstation, a Texas Tower, in 1967. Between 1823 and 1967 several ships were commissioned Lightship Ambrose and served at the station.

The Lightship Ambrose (LV87), built 1908, served her station until 1933 when she was reassigned to serve as the Lightship Scotland, a station much closer to Sandy Hook, New Jersey. In 1968, the U.S. Coast Guard gifted the ship to the South Street Seaport Museum in New York City where she remains berthed and can be visited by the public.

In 1952, the Lightship Ambrose (WLV 613) was commissioned and became the last lightship to mark the Ambrose Channel when she was replaced by a Texas Tower lightstation on August 24, 1967. She was reassigned as a relief ship on the Massachusetts coastline from 1967–75. And finally, after being renamed Nantucket II, she was reassigned to Nantucket Shoals, where she alternated with her sister ship, the Lightship Nantucket (WLV 612), relieving each other approximately every 21 days, until 1983.

Text from: www.southstseaport.org/street/helen.shtm

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Text from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightship_Ambrose