Anyone interested in seeing boats like these in action, need to go to the Prelinger archives and get this copyright-free film. No cost to you.

http://www.archive.org/details/Boats1938

Enjoy!

Go get "Google Earth" install, look up staten island, go to the south west corner and begin scanning the chanel northwards... You'll run into the shipyard before very long. and yes! you can actually identify some of the ships....