Mayor J Harold Grady

Type:
artificial reef, fireboat
Built:
1960, Jakobson Shipyard, Oyster Bay, NY
Specs:
( 86 x 20 ft ) 93 tons
Sunk:
Saturday June 22, 2024 - Delaware #11 Artificial Reef
GPS:
38°40.457' -74°42.961'

The Mayor J. Harold Grady - named for Baltimore’s sitting mayor when commissioned in 1960 - was one of three Baltimore fireboats built that year by Jakobson Shipyard in Oyster Bay, L.I. and was among the most modern and well-equipped fireboats of her time, with a pumping capacity of 6,000 gallons of water per minute and top speed of 15 mph. She would later distinguish herself during Baltimore’s inner harbor fire of 1968, when flames at a lumberyard at Pier 5 spread to other businesses and even threatened the U.S.S Constellation. Grady stayed in service until 2007. DNREC bought her using federal Sport Fish Restoration funds, and she was hauled out to the reef site and sunk by Norfolk VA-based marine contractor Coleen Marine.

an old postcard
July 1990

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no snorkel

Here is an item that is useful in the tropics, but much less so around here. This is because the water here is not nearly as crystal clear as in the tropics, and the depths are often greater. Therefore it is unlikely you will be able to see anything interesting below from the surface.

On a boat dive, a snorkel is totally useless - leave it home. Chances are, the captain and crew will tell you to take it off anyway. The same is generally true for inlet diving where the entry is steep. A snorkel is just one extra thing to get tangled up, and you will probably have enough of that already. A snorkel might be useful in a surface swim from the beach out to a close-in dive site, if it is a good one with purge valve or a dry valve to keep the water out entirely. Even then, you are better off doing a backstroke out to the site, with your head out of the water so you can navigate by landmarks, or an underwater swim if the currents are favorable.

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