Logo for: Rotary Old Saybrook

OS Rotary Meeting 10/4/17

Pledge: President Rick Beck
Prayer: Ken Roche with a moment of silence
Song: Rick, God Bless America
Brents Card Game Winner: Bill O'Shaughnessy

Sergeants Report: Joe Arcari
Raffle Winners: Bill O'Shaughnessy, John Giannini, Ken Roche
Happy Bucks: Joe was happy to be in Old Saybrook especially this time of year, ditto for Marty, Bill for being a 2-time winner tonight, Maurice is going home Saturday, the Asst DG was in attendance, Ken who just went to his 62nd high school reunion, happy bucks for our guests and Jan was happy for Steve Cryan and his program.

Meals on Wheels: Bill McLaughlin

Program: Steve Cryan

Steve did a program at a club meeting, Boats on the River, July 26. Tonight's program was a continuation of that. Steve presented slides with comments and stories of ferries, tugboats, ocean liners, and trains. As a youth, Steve knew he wanted to be involved with boats and he has many life experiences through the years. An accomplished artist, Steve has many works of the vessels that comprised commerce on the local rivers and Long Island Sound. Steve has an impressive collection of artifacts such as whistles and design charts from boats of yesteryear. Steve is an authority in this area and shared a wealth of knowledge that was interesting and pertinent because they laid the foundation for today's boats and trains. For example, tugs built in the 20s had a horsepower rating of 500-1000 horsepower. Todays tugs are 2000-5000 horsepower - made to handle the tonage of today's ships. Steve worked on the railroads laying track in 1970. He spoke of the Shoreline Electric RR that suffered a head-on collision in Branford that led to its demise (picture included). The Queen Elizabeth moved 16,000 troops in one voyage to Germany. It was too fast for the German U-boats so it made the trans oceanic voyage safely despite attacks. The Cornfield Lightship is docked in Delaware and you can still go on it. The Conn. River was very busy in commerce up to 15 years ago. Other slides shown were the Lackawana Ferry, Orient Light, the VS44 sea plane built by Sikorski, the Coast Guard Cutter USCGC Eagle which is a captured German ship from WWII, the Savin Rock railroad, Union Pacific Big Boy - the biggest locomotive to ever roam the earth, the Ringling Bros transport train with elephants on board, oyster boats, Fenwick Hall (train station that burned down ending railroad traffic to the Fenwick area), and much more. Steve did some work for Lionel Trains, designing a cover for a catalog and was recently asked permission to use it again. Thank you Steve for an enjoyable presentation!

md