Barrel is the pseudonym (nom de blog?) of a gentleman who worked with the USACE for many years in the Philadelphia area. Click here for the RTC yard history.
Click here for info on the tugboat Interstate. Can anyone add any info to that?
According to barrel, the YTB here is functioning as a fender between USACE Comber and another vessel. Comber was built in Pascagoula in 1947.
Any guesses on the Moran tug here? It’s standing by after a collision between passenger vessel Santa Rosa and tanker Valchem, whose stack is perched on Santa Rosa‘s bow.
Below is a photo of Valchem sans stack and displaying impact point. Click here for some info on the collision.
Now these next three boats leave me somewhat confused.
Were they sold foreign? Here’s a reference to a hull #504 and 505 built at Marietta Mfc. in Pt. Pleasant, WV.
And the last of the push boats for today, it’s Mateur. Well, it was called that, before it became push boat Effie Afton and then a restaurant called Jumers. Is she still there and serving food and fun? Maybe I need to schedule a gallivant to Rock Island.
So let’s end with a vessel I’m more familiar with . . . Pilot, currently up the Hudson a ways from the sixth boro.
And here’s Pilot, showing her to scale with her workmates.
Many thanks to barrel, who sends me these and other puzzles, stumpers, and conundrums.
tugster: a waterblog 
4 comments
Comments feed for this article
April 29, 2016 at 3:06 pm
tugster
Comment here from Dan Owen: “Your mystery boats were built during World War II to move materiel and petroleum on the inland waterways, specifically petroleum from wells along the Gulf coast to terminals on the upper Ohio, Kanawha and Monongahela rivers. From there the petroleum went by pipeline to East coast refineries. Nazi subs were sinking so many tankers running from the Gulf coast to the East coast, that an inland boat/barge “pipeline” was built. The boats were owned by the Defense Plant Corporation, Washington, D. C., but were operated by major inland barge firms. They look odd because they were designed by people in Washington who had no idea what an inland river towboat looked like. There were 21 of these big towboats and all were steam powered. All of the diesel engines built during WW II went to submarines, LSTs, etc. The boats were named for a prominent battle that happened around the time the boats were launched. At the end of the war they were all sold to towing companies. Some operated until the early 1960s. Many rivermen were exempted from the draft during the war in order to man towboats. The inland river towboats moved so much war materiel that it was nicknamed the “Catfish Navy.” The whole DPC thing during WW II makes fascinating reading. They built 100 single screw tugs in addition to the towboats. Also, hundreds of tank barges to haul the petroleum. The barge line that I worked for bought about 50 of the tank barges and were using them up into the mid 1960s.” Here’s Dan’s site: http://boatphotos.home.insightbb.com
April 30, 2016 at 12:35 pm
William Lafferty
The Milne Bay’s hull was built by the war-emergency shipyard Cargill, Inc., established at Savage, Minnesota, on the Minnesota River, for the Defense Plant Corporation, as Dan says. It was finished at the Pidgeon-Thomas Iron Works at Memphis, where this photograph was taken. It had twin four-cylinder triple expansion steam engines and four screws, 2000 hp. Mississippi Valley Barge Line. Inc., operated it during the war on behalf of the DPC, which sold it to the Martin Oil Company of Lemont, Illinois, which renamed it Allen B. Wood. American Barge Lines later operated it. Bauer Dredging of Port Lavacqua, Texas, acquired it in 1959 and converted it to a hydraulic Diesel dredge named Dave Blackburn. It burned a total loss in Tiger Pass, Louisiana, 23 October 1996.
The hull numbers are wrong for the Marietta boats. These are the DPC towboats Guam and Kiski. Hull number 504 was LT 321. Guam became the H. E. Lewis for Jones & Laughlin Steel, Pittsburgh, America for American Barge Line Co., Jeffersonville, Indiana, and also a dredge for Bauer, named BDCO 28. Kiski became W. J. Creighton for J & L and Constitution for ABLCo. It, too, became a dredge for a Bauer subsidiary, as the Senator Russell B. Long. Dan might know what happened to these two.
May 1, 2016 at 10:41 am
Dan Owen
After they became dredges, I finished tracking them.
July 13, 2018 at 1:44 pm
Joel Brown
Mateur was used by the Vicksburg District Corps of Engineers until around 1979 when replaced by the diesel powered towboat Benyaurd. I have often heard the Mateur was the last working steam towboat on the Mississippi River. Vicksburg District operated 3 DPC towboats, Mateur was the last.