Canal Corp Boats 12

Enjoy more blue and gold boats today, and these are called SPS’s . . . as in self-propelled scows.  Generally they have a house at stern and lifting capability forward, as you can see on SPS 52.  The inclusion of these details is where the similarity among these vessels ends . . . as you will notice in the variety of houses below.

SPS 59.

SPS 60 in summer of 2014 and

in late spring of 2009.  For details on this photo, click here and here for photos of the launch on Onrust, assisted by an SPS.

And then–as with the tenders and buoy boats–there are SPS’s with registry numbers but no “numeric name,”  if you catch my drift, like the one below with registry ending in …305 seen here and

here, as well as

. . . 327.

Let’s look closer at SPS 60’s propulsion.

For more info on Thrustmaster propulsion, click here.  For thrusters like these on a huge crane, click here.

I have no idea how many SPS’s operate on the canal or how old these are or when such vessels first served the canal.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.