Hull Gut

Hull Gut is a gut (a narrow, naturally dredged deep-water channel) about half a mile wide and thirty-five feet deep, in Boston Harbor running between Pemberton Point in Hull and the East Head of Peddocks Island. Along with its sister channel, West Gut, which runs between the West Head of Peddocks Island and Hough's Neck in Quincy, Hull Gut forms the southern entrance to the Inner Harbor connecting it to Hingham Bay. To the north the gut intersects with the deep-water shipping lane Nantasket Roads. Strong cross-currents and often heavy traffic make the gut a dangerous waterway. The channel is used by oil tankers and other freighters bound for industries around the Weymouth Fore River in Braintree, Weymouth, and Quincy and, historically, was used by the shipbuilding industry.

View across Hull Gut

Peddocks Island, with Hull Gut to the left, off the East Head.

In 1909 Rosie Pitenhof, a fourteen-year-old girl from Dorchester, was the first known person to successfully swim across the gut, from Peddocks Island to the shore at Pemberton in Hull, and back again at flood tide. Miss Pitenhof was in the water twenty-two minutes; nine minutes crossing and thirteen minutes returning.[1]

References

"Girl Swims Hull Gut: 14-Year-old Miss First Person to Accomplish Hard Task at Boston" (PDF). The New York Times. July 14, 1909. Retrieved July 8, 2012.

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[nytimes-1] "Girl Swims Hull Gut: 14-Year-old Miss First Person to Accomplish Hard Task at Boston" (PDF). The New York Times. July 14, 1909. Retrieved July 8, 2012.