I like collaboration. Number nine was a week and a half ago, but I do appreciate fotos like the ones here.
Ken of Michigan Exposures took this one up in Bay City, MI, a hundred plus miles northwest of Detroit. Any guesses on the vintage of this attractive tug . . .55′ loa x 12′ ? Answer follows.
Staying with vintage Great Lakes tugs, this foto comes from Jason LaDue, who recently sent these fotos from upstate. The foto below was taken in Oswego, NY, in late 1998. Three tugs had been sold south by Great Lakes Towing. The tugs below are from RIGHT to left, Gull (1952 ex-Jennifer George, Galway Bay, Oregon), Sea Tractor (1951 ex-Messenger, Patricia Hoey, New Hampshire) and the one I’ve called Grouper, whose entire saga you can find by using the blog search window to the left. Gull and Sea Tractor were both built in Louisiana at Alexander Shipyards.
At this point these fotos were taken in December 1998, all three tugs were headed south, but Grouper has never left the Erie Canal yet . . . in the past 13 years. Did anyone catch Gull and Sea Tractor coming through the sixth boro in early 1999?
Here’s Gull working the icy Great Lakes as Gaelic’s Galway Bay, and
Sea Tractor in the same green as Patricia Hoey. Note the wheelhouse design of Patricia.
When these tugs had first come to the Great Lakes, via the Mississippi/Chicago River, they looked different. Tug on the far right is Messenger, before becoming Patricia.
Which brings us to the present. I’m told that Gull was scrapped last year in Virginia/Philly (?) as American Pride. Anyone have other fotos? Here are two by shipjohn. Thanks, shipjohn.
And Sea Tractor (then called Shark) was reefed a year and a half ago near Miami’s Haulover Artificial Reef site in September 2010. I’d LOVE to see fotos of her in her last years, maybe even of the scuttling. Anyone help? Here’s a poor quality foto of Shark being hauled out to be reefed in 255′ of water.
No news currently on Grouper in Lyons, NY, but I wish the restoration of the 100-year old tug success.
Thanks much to Jason and Ken for these fotos.
Jill Marie, 121 years old!! Built 1891.
tugster: a waterblog 
5 comments
Comments feed for this article
January 23, 2012 at 2:37 pm
Harold E. Tartell
Photo # 6 Shows MESSENGER (Suderman & Young Towing Co.) & JENNIFER GEORGE (Bay-Houston Towing Co.) With Towboat FRANK PHIPPS. MESSENGER Was Built In 1951 By Alexander Shipyards, New Orleans. http://shipbuildinghistory.com/history/shipyards/5small/inactive/alexander.htm. She Became PATRICIA HOEY, NEW HAMPSHIRE SEA TRACTOR, And Is Presently SHARK. JENNIFER GEORGE Also Built By Alexander in 1952 Became Gaelic Tugboats GALWAY BAY. http://www.tugboatinformation.com/tug.cfm?id=1603, http://www.gaelictugboat.com/. The FRANK PHIPPS http://photographingamerica.blogspot.com/2008/09/frank-phipps-ohio-river-tugboat-off.html, http://www.towboatgallery.com/Capt_Richard_Sides-0274333.php?pic=4&tnc=5 Is Now CAPT. RICHARD SIDES.
Capt. Richard Sides 274333
Twin screw towboat, b. 1957 by Jeffersonville (Ind.) Boat & Machine Co. 160 x 35. GM
16-645E2 diesels, 3800 hp. Falk red. 3.96:1. Kort nozzles. Orig. PHILIP SPORN, renamed
FRANK PHIPPS July 1972 by American Commercial Barge Line. Sold March 1984 to
Triangle Marine, Inc., Greenville. Sold Nov. 1989, renamed PHYLLIS LAY by B&H
Towing, Inc., Paducah. Sold March 1994, renamed P. H. STEPHAICH by Campbell
Transportation Co., Inc., Charleroi, Pa. Sold Nov. 2005, renamed LILLIAN K by KBK
Marine LLC, Paducah.sold March 2007 to Martin Marietta Materials, Inc., Mandeville,
La. Sold April 2007, renamed by Southern Towing Co., Memphis, Tenn.
January 23, 2012 at 3:26 pm
tugster
thanks much, harold. a postscript though . . . for the past year and a half, Shark has become habitat for sharks and other fish off northern miami.
January 23, 2012 at 3:26 pm
tugboathunter
Great photos as usual!
January 24, 2012 at 6:20 am
Anonymous
AMERICAN PRIDE was scrapped at Girard Point in the Schuylkill River this past summer. There is a picture of her remains on ”Shipspotting”. JEFF S
January 24, 2012 at 9:07 am
Ken
I took pictures of the Jill Marie before but I never really thought anything of her before. I thought it was just a regular boat painted to look like a tug. I didn’t realize she was actually a tug. That is until I decided to look up her history and then I realized she was over 100 years old. That’s pretty impressive in this day and age.