Thanks to all of you who send me photos. M & M McMorrow sent this photo taken at Atlantic Highlands just before Christmas. And yes,
Delta is the best Christmas red. I can’t seem to find a tugboat in the NMFS.NOAA registry called just “Delta.” Someone help out?
Richie Ryden took these photos just before New Year’s, sending them along with the note “I took these pic’s on 12/28/16 on the Hackensack River between Rt 3 east & west Bridges , It looks like they a are rebuilding the marina there !!! I saw Reliable from Coastline Marine Towing out of Belford NJ switching barges empty for a full one with old pilings on it ! look at your blog all the time keep up the good work !!!! Happy New Year !!!!”
Happy New Year, Richie! And I have to admit I can find nothing about previous owners of Reliable also, although the late great John Skelson had a photo of her from a while back sans the upper house here. Richie’s photos also helped solidify my image of what this vessel looks like compared with another Reliable that languishes up on the Oswego Canal.
Jed sent me this photo just after the start of 2017 with the note “Happy New Year from Maryland. Here is your first tug of 2017, the ten-year-old Belgian Union Grizzly that I saw on the Scheldt in 2012.” Thx Jed. And since that time, she’s sent a half dozen more photos of European tugboats, which I’ll post soon.
And Tyler Jones must be losing his patience: he sent me this photo back on November 1, and I still have not put it up. What I love about this photo, Tyler, is the fog giving the impression that Coral Coast pushing a cement barge upriver at Poughkeepsie is weightless, floating lazily on the clouds. Thx much, Tyler.
Jan van der Doe periodically sends me photos from Canadian Lake Ontario ports. He didn’t identify this boat although I’m wondering if it’s Lac Manitoba, which capsized on the Ottawa River back in June 2015.
In Hamilton harbor, here’s (l to r) Florence M, Tony Mackay, and James A. Hannah. Hannah is a sister of Bloxom, the cover model for my documentary about the Arthur Kill graveyard and the most intact tugboat in the graveyard on the Arthur Kill.
And finally, on December 12, here are more McKeil boats tied up in Hamilton.
Thanks much M & M, Richie, Jed, Tyler, and Jan.
tugster: a waterblog 
6 comments
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January 10, 2017 at 1:14 pm
Scott Edgell
Vesselfinder.com shows DELTA – IMO 8644553 from Norfolk… The picture looks like the same tug.
January 10, 2017 at 1:45 pm
tugster
Thx, Scott. That’s the one: http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=2244554
January 10, 2017 at 5:06 pm
John Vanderdoe
It is the “Lac Manitoba” Will.
January 10, 2017 at 10:54 pm
George Schneider
RELIABLE is a classic 100-foot oilfield Utility Boat built by Universal Iron Works in Houma LA. She was completed in 1973 as CLIFF ESERMAN. With the collapse of the Eserman empire, she became SHAN-DAV of G & L Marine of New Orleans, which soon reorganized as Shan-Dav Inc. In 1993 they gave her the more conventional name of DAVID ADAMS. It’s only recently she’s been reclassed and modified for towing work.
Your link to your previous post about the abandoned boat named RELIABLE answered another question. In that same post was the same ex-Army T-boat I inquired about when you posted it 21 October. In the earlier posting, her name shows, TAPPAN ZEE V. The photo is clear enough that, if she’d also still had her T-number welded on her, it would have shown, but alas, there is none.
January 11, 2017 at 7:16 am
tugster
Thx, George, but two friends who work in the Waterford shop that refurbed Tappan Zee V found no identifying marks anywhere after looking in all the usual places. TZ5 is still a mystery T-boat. As to the Canal vessel called Reliable, she has a twin that looks as god as new although she’s (like Reliable) from the 1930s. Here’s a post: https://tugster.wordpress.com/2014/10/22/tug-syracuse-continued/
February 13, 2017 at 9:51 am
Donald Thibodaux
I worked on her in the late 70’s when she was servicing the oil field out of Grand Isle, LA. Good times yeah!