Facing the oncoming death penalty of OPA ’90 and a final trip into the history books, the elegantly old-school Patrick Sky continues to work New York Harbor on a late autumn day, a surviving classic of the dwindling single-hull species. By 2015 all single-skin petroleum tankers and tank barges will be extinct in this part of the world; put to work in a different trade, sent off to be scrapped, or else to be used by countries more willing than we are to gamble on poisoning their waters. Is that for the better? Absolutely. Our evolution has been very slow in coming, and the ruination of Prince William Sound by the Exxon Valdez in 1989 was a very heavy price to pay for it. Still, it’ll be sad to see her go…..
Comments