Let’s start with the grande dame . . . Edna G, on the land side of the loading dock in Two Harbors MN. Guess her year of build?
Two Harbors is about 30 miles NE of Duluth.
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Nancy J, at the same ore dock, dates from 1964, but I know little else.
Bayfield, now a gnome in a planter, was built as ST2023 by Roamer, Holland MI in 1953 and was turned over to the USACE in 1962. I don’t know how long it has adorned the planter.
I wonder who did the fancy weld . . .
Huron–ex-Daniel McAllister–is seven years newer than Ellen McAllister, a sixth boro staple. Huron‘s been here only since early 2017.
And I have to end the photos here, with these two unidentified GL-tugs, although I’m guessing might or not not be Arkansas, Kentucky, and/or North Carolina. I only figured out later how to get closer . . . after I’d left town. This is what Grouper used to look like.
And if you can spare a half hour, here’s a youtube of another tug, previously of Twin Ports, and older sibling of Urger . . . Sea Bird, which like Urger had at one point been a fish tug, a topic for another day. Here’s a three-minute youtube which shows GL tugs arriving in port. If you listen to the intercom in the background, you’ll note that Duluth–like Port Huron–has someone announce each vessel as it traverses the Ship Canal. I call that valuing the port.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
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July 3, 2017 at 12:55 pm
Tony A
Damn, I don’t have anyone announcing for my tug in the Bronx River or Newtown creek.
July 3, 2017 at 2:39 pm
tugster
I’ve seen this arrangement now in Port huron and here, and folks are there to listen, wave, take photos, and learn!
July 3, 2017 at 6:01 pm
Martt Koski
That “fancy weld” is for the US Army Transportation Corps. Which the BAYFIELD was build for. Then the USACE took ownership. Those 45 foot ST tugs were very common in the USACE fleet. Most if not all have been sold off as surplus and replaced by now. A lot of them end up having second lives with the dredge companies. ( GLDD , Weeks , Norfolk Dredge etc. )
July 4, 2017 at 7:25 am
tugster
Matt– Thx for the clarification.
July 4, 2017 at 11:21 am
William Lafferty
The Nancy J was built by Main Iron Works at Houma, Louisiana, hull number 130, for the Aluminum Company of America named for the location of Alcoa’s alumina refinery. 87.6 x x 29.6 11.2; 186 gt, 126 nt; twin Fairbanks Morse 10-cylinder OP Diesels, 1700-bhp. It was sold to Point Comfort Towing, Inc., after a mechanical breakdown in 2000, at which point it was repowered with twin EMD 16-TI-149s (3500-bhp) and renamed Horace. Point Comfort sold the vessel to Harbor Docking and Towing, Lake Charles, Louisiana, and in 2014 it was sold to Michael Ojard of Knife River who operates it as part of his family’s Heritage Marine LLC. The vessel’s namesake is Ojard’s wife.
July 4, 2017 at 11:23 am
William Lafferty
Woops. Should have included its original name was Point Comfort.
July 4, 2017 at 11:27 am
William Lafferty
And I may as well add the Bayfield has been at that spot since 1999 (retired from the Corps four years earlier).