The Mary A Whalen

Theme curated by: Carolina Salguero and Peter Rothenberg

The oil tanker MARY A.WHALEN  is PortSide NewYork's ambassador to the BLUEspace and site of our offices and many programs.  Built for Red Hook's Ira Bushey and Sons, she was launched May 21, 1938 and is significant to area history and national maritime law.

Below are a collection of stories, images and oral histories relating to the Mary A Whalen. 

A PDF guide to MARY A. WHALEN inEnglish,French,German,Spanish,Italian The oil tankerMARY A. WHALENwas launched May 21, 1938.The ship is PortSide NewYork's ambassador to theBLUEspaceand site of our offices and many programs. Why she is…

Explore The Mary A. Whalen by clicking on the links below and hearing about her places and people. Or read a guide inEnglish,French,German,Spanish,Italian Plimsoll Line(Links will take you to our PortSide NewYork website) …

The MARY A WHALEN is a rare surviving example of a bell boat.On a bell boat, the person steering (the captain or the mate) has no direct control over the speed of the engine, nor whether the ship goes forward or in reverse. The engineer, as the name…

The engine of the MARY A WHALEN is not exactly the same. Ours is a Fairbanks Morse 1938 37E12 6 cylinder direct reversing serial # 808553 450hp, 300rpm.Developed in the 1920s, the engine design was tried and true when MARY was built in 1938…

Alf Dyrland was Captain of the MARY A. WHALEN from her rechristening in 1962 until 1978 when he retired. He was her first captain; she was his last boat. Alf loved the MARY deeply. As he lay dying in 1996, what he said out loud revealed to family in…

Our ship MARY A. WHALEN is famous in maritime law. That’s because American admiralty law is a lot fairer thanks to a case involving the MARY A. WHALEN, the 1975 Supreme Court decision U.S. vs Reliable Transfer. As a nation, we can be thankful that…

Hear notable marine engineer and architect Dr. Charles R. Cushing talk about the rescue of the MARY A. WHALEN.Cushing has played a significant role in maritime history during 60+ years, including being one of the architects of containerization. In…

Gary Shiflett, currently a fleet manager, used to work for Ira S. Bushey and Sons and Eklof Marine. In 2016, while standing in the galley of PortSide NewYork's MARY A. WHALEN-a "Bushey boat" - he told of some of his memories of working on ships. His…

The tanker MARY A. Whalen, flagship of PortSide NewYork was built for Ira S. Bushey & Sons. Ira S. Bushey started his work life driving mules on the Erie Canal in the latter half of the 19th Century. After trying various jobs, he returned to…

PortSide NewYork created this Red Hook WaterStories product. PortSide is a maritime non-profit founded in Red Hook in 2005. Our goal is to create a waterfront center with a landing for boats, a home for the MARY A. WHALEN, and more programs and…

"Reliable was owned by Harold Tabeling of Brooklyn, N.Y. and he named the vessel after his Mother." from Carl E. Eklof, Sr. The short answer is Mary Agnes Whalen was Captain John Tabeling’s wife and mother of James Harold. James and John, ran the…

The names of things on ships are different than buildings on land. Here are some key words using PortSide New York's MARY A WHALEN as the example. Ship parts:beam:width of the boat bow:front endbulkhead: wallbunk:bedcabin:bedroomcowl…