ATB

Another three-letter abbreviation serving as title? It must indicate how I think this time of year: short words, like elementary school, like basic things.

In slightly warmer weather, she asked me how Morton did it. Morton being Morton S. Bouchard Jr. here the “T”, nose tucked into a shallow notch on this fuel B. Being in a smart-aleck mood, I said, “Just as we do.” Her harumph signaled that my attempt at wit had failed. “It,” she clarified, meant “push the barge upstream without it snapping the cables and yawing off in its own direction.”

 

So, putting aside my attitude, I enlist Penn Maritime tug Julie, southbound here in Arthur Kill under goose escort, to help me demonstrate how Mort might do it.

 

One of a pair, this starboard hardware inside a “ring” plate is not a vestigial wheel. Neither decorative nor defensive, it’s a coupler. This link shows how it works.

 

Davis Sea has a similar coupler,

 

as do Nicole Leigh Reinauer

 

and Jane A. Bouchard. And as they do it, so might Morton.

 

All photos, WVD.