It was frigid on Thursday when the Shoofly — a 64-foot 1941 tugboat forged with American steel – set out along the Newtown Creek to carve up the ice sheets blocking barges from getting through.
The ice parted soundlessly before the 78-ton vessel as it made its way past the Kosciuszko Bridge, which connects industrial stretches of Brooklyn and Queens, through a stretch of creek that isn’t as busy as its mouth near the East River.
If not for the Shoofly’s efforts, barges carrying essential heating fuel for thousands of homes in Brooklyn and Queens wouldn’t be able to get through.
The U.S. Coast Guard’s three icebreaking tugs – Penobscot Bay, Sturgeon Bay and Hawser — are working 12-hour shifts focused on the Hudson River and the New York Harbor. The Hudson has to be kept clear for fuel deliveries upstate and is much quicker to freeze because it’s mostly fresh water, compared to the East River’s saltwater.
That’s left the Shoofly to embark on its first ice-breaking mission — at least since Captain N.D. Austin took the helm in 2017.
“There aren’t that many boats in the harbor who can go out and break ice,” Austin said. “There aren’t a ton of icebreakers in New York.”
The Shoofly is not a traditional working tugboat. As part of the Tideland Institute, which was cofounded by a nonprofit that aims to make New York City’s waterways and coastline more accessible, it is more regularly involved in waterfront art projects — occasionally with this reporter as a volunteer shiphand — than with fuel deliveries.
But an icebreaker is really just any tugboat with a sturdy steel hull to break through frozen sheets that might damage a weaker vessel. The method is simple: Break the ice by ramming through it.
So as the creek’s brackish water froze amid New York’s long run of freezing temperatures, the Shoofly took on a new mission, slowly but methodically, humming along at a speed of around 4 knots, or 5 miles an hour.
Several times throughout the afternoon, the tugboat confronted large sheets of contiguous ice that halted it in its tracks. Even then, a simple reverse and pivot allowed the boat to take on a smaller slice.
For about two hours, the Shoofly chugged up and down the creek, carving off new hunks of ice with each swipe. As the sun set behind the industrial landscape, the blackish waters already glistened with a thin layer of fresh ice quickly beginning to refreeze in the boat’s wake.
As of Friday, it’s been seven consecutive days in New York City with the temperature continuously below freezing, according to the National Weather Service.
The New York City Ferry, whose vessels are made of lightweight aluminum and designed for speed, has indefinitely suspended operations.
Coast Guard icebreakers have had to dislodge an NYPD vessel on the Hudson River, and are helping trash and scrap metal barges coming and going from Red Hook, Petty Officer Logan Kaczmarek told THE CITY.
The National Weather Service began tracking temperatures in 1871, and since then the longest stretch of consecutive subzero temperatures was 16 days in the winter of 1961. As Hell Gate recently noted, the East River froze repeatedly in the 19th century, even enabling citydwellers to cross between Brooklyn and Manhattan on foot.
“As news spread that such a feat was possible, thousands left their business to gratify their love of adventure by a run across the newly constructed bridge,” the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported on January 23 of 1867.
New York Metro Weather meteorologist John Homenuk said there’s a chance we could break that record of 16 subzero days if Monday and Tuesday don’t crack freezing.
“The back half of next week looks really cold so that’ll be the test,” he said.
That’s likely to mean regular icebreaking expeditions for the Shoofly in the days to come.
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