Happy fall equinox.  This seems as good a time as any to honor Poseidon with a photo parade of more fish tugs, to really challenge a segue. . .

as is grouping Lady Kate with fishing tugs.  It appears she was built as passenger vessel G. A. Buckling II back in 1952, and is wearing her fourth name now, but

she certainly has the lines of a fish tug despite possibly never having worked as such.  I’m sure someone will weigh in on this.

Doris M is a fish tug built in Erie in 1947, and given the flags,

she appears to still work.

Real Glory is a real deal:  a Lake Erie fishing boat that sells the catch right from the pier, according to this news article.

If I lived nearby, here’s where I’d get my fish dinner.

Environaut (1950) is a 48′ science platform for Gannon University.   

Big Bertha is a 1945 Stadium Boat Works fish tug, built as Gloria Mae.

I love how shore power plugs in here.

Thanks to this site, I can confirm that ASI Clipper, which I’ve wondered about before, began its life as a 1938 Port Colborne-built fish tug.  Here’s a photo from that earlier incarnation.

And finally, we end here, it’s Eleanor D, a 1946 Stadium Boat Works fish tug about to be eclipsed by Stephen B. Roman.  Here’s a closer-up photo of Eleanor D I took almost a decade ago.  Like me, Stephen B Roman has been roaming a lot.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who is honored to have been interviewed on WBAI’s Talk Back–New York, We and Thee show.  To hear the interview, click here and start listening at about the 1 hour 38 minute mark on the Sept 20 show.

And if you haven’t seen this yet on PBS, stream Erie: The Canal that Made America here.

And finally, click here for the “fishing tugs” tugster archive.