Call this a “what’s it.” I post the answer at the end of this set. So the question is … What is this style of vessel called? I’d seen one prior to this on Lake Ontario.
Elsie J has been in the same South Haven, Michigan, family for three generations.
Evelyn S, quite similar is a display at Michigan Maritime Museum.
This unnamed vessel, same idea, is ready to splash in Muskegon.
Judy Ann, also in Muskegon, needs work. So what are they?
Check this Michigan link. More on these tugs later. By the way, Erie Canal’s Urger, featured here several times, was originally built near Muskegon as . . . a fishing tug. Anyone have ideas on why the vessels above are called tugs. . . other than that they tug nets?
Photos, WVD.
tugster: a waterblog 
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June 5, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Daniel Meeter
We used to see them in the Canadian ports on the north shore of the lake. There was one in Port Colborne, but there were more in Port Dover and westward. They fished mostly for perch and pickerel.
June 5, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Bob Burdett
Lake Erie Fish Boat. i saw one working off of Yarmouth NS in 1981!
June 5, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Mage Bailey
I’ve never seen one before. A unique fish.
June 6, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Daniel Meeter
And I think there used to be, in the early ’70’s, a boat like this out of Grand Haven that fished for chubs in Lake Michigan.
They are not pretty boats. The superstructure is for the weather, and a reminder of how bad the weather can be, before it freezes up, on the Great Lakes.
As for the name Tug, I shall investigate. I remember reading somewhere that the nautical terms on the Great Lakes are completely isolated from the terms of the Atlantic, because the workers on the lake boats were separated from the maritimers by at least one generation.
June 9, 2008 at 12:17 am
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