Cape Cumbria | tugster: a waterblog

I found it hard to move on from the #300 mile marker, so let me offer up another set, with some of your generous contributions.

Thanks to John “Jed” Jedrlinic, two tugboats from Tahiti, Aito Nui and

Aito Nui II. My machine translator tells me the name means “champions of the universe.” Aito Nui, 98′ x 33′, dates from 2001, built in Concarneau, Brittany. Aito Nui II, 94′ x 34′, is a Damen tug built in 2017. Jed took these photos last October in Tahiti.

From George Schneider, “Here’s one of Curtin Maritime’s remarkable tug rebuilds: Sarah C (501167), 65′ x 24′. She was built in 1965 for Pacific Towboat Co. after they’d been aligned with Foss. She came out as Sea Queen, sister to the Martinolich/Foss M class. In 1974 she was fully fossticized and became Mathilda Foss. She was discarded in the mid 1980’s and was picked up by Mogul Ocean Towing (apparently a corporate name for Campbell Towing) who owned her through 2007. It was then that Curtin Maritime picked her up for reconstruction.”

She’s a beauty. Check out the Curtin webpage here, with its great header photo. George took the photo in February 2020 in San Diego.

Kyle Stubbs: “I found David has appeared on your blog once before, in Something Different 21. [Click on that link for an unbelievable transformation.] At that time, you asked for information about David‘s continued existence and later names. I’m surprised that it had not come out of the woodwork that she’s still around under her original name, working on Long Island Sound. When I took these photos at New Haven in 2017, she was working for a construction company from Branford, Connecticut called Blakeslee Arpaia Chapman. Given that her Coast Guard documentation still lists her homeport as Branford, I’m assuming that’s still the case.”

Again, it’s hard to believe it’s the same hull given the radical superstructure changes.

TS Poderoso I took in Niteroi Brasil in 2013. TS Poderoso (name is Portuguese for “powerful”) was built in southern Brasil in 2007 by a company intriguingly named Detroit S. A. Group.

On the same trip I took this photo of Cape Cumbria, built Appledore Shipbuilders Ltd. in Bideford (southwestern UK) in 1977. Technically, it’s not a tugboat, but beside it,

is C Brilhante, a 2008 built tug.

I add this photo because it was taken in Beirut harbor by Godra. Click on the image for fuller info. Thank you, Godra. I’d love to know more about the ports of Lebanon.

Harold Tartell shared this photo years ago, but I never used it until now because I wondered who’d taken it, when, and what the context was. Maybe Capt. Bill VanVoorhis took it? Fannie J is currently working in Haiti as Sisters. She was built in . . . ready for this . . . . 1874!! 1874!!! Here‘s a photo of her as Sisters.

I took this photo on the Chesapeake in October 2012 . . . Norfolk Rebel in the Great Chesapeake Schooner Race. She’s the world’s only tugantine.

This was the Donjon Shipbuilding yard in Erie PA Febuary 2018. From left to right, Dorothy Ann (the world’s largest z-drive tug at 124′ x 44′), Joyce L. VanEnkvort (135′ x 50′), and Elizabeth Anna (54′ x 17′).