Something Different 53

Recently I got a request for something on single screw tugs.  Ask . .  and receive, from the archives.

May 1, 2011  . .  the 1901 Urger was on the dry dock wall in Lyons looking all spiffy.  A month later, she’d be miles away and alive.

On March 19, 2010, the 1907 Pegasus had all the work done she was scheduled for, and the floating dry dock is sinking here.  In 10 minutes, Pegasus would be afloat and a yard tug … draw her out.

On a cold day last winter, a shot of the 1912 Grouper, in dry dock, waiting for a savior.   If you’re savvy and have deep reservoirs of skill and money, you can likely have her cheap.

In that same dry dock, the 1926 boxy superstructure DeWitt Clinton.

To digress, here’s how her much-lower clearance looked when first launched in Boothbay.

Back on July 30, 2017, I caught the 1929 Nebraska getting some life-extension work.   Unlike the previous single screw boats, Nebraska has a Kort nozzle surrounding its prop, which clearly is away getting some work done on it also.

On February 10, 2010, the 1931 Patty Nolan was on the hard.  She was put back in, but currently she’s back on the hard, with plans to float her again this summer.

A CanalCorp boat, I believe this is Dana, was in dry dock in Lyons this past winter.  If so, she’s from 1935.

As you’ve noticed, single screw tugs have sweet elliptical sterns.  All painted up and ready to splash, they are things of beauty.  On December 16, 2006, I caught the 1941 Daniel DiNapoli, ex-Spuyten Duyvil, about to re-enter her element.

Also in dry dock but not ready to float, on March 10, 2010, the 1958 McAllister Brothers, ex-Dalzelleagle is getting some TLC.

Is it coincidence that so many of these single screw boats are   . . . aged?  Nope.  Twin- and triple-screw boats can do many more things.  Is it only because the regulations have changed?  Have any single-screw tugs been built in recent years?  Are single-screw boat handling skills disappearing in this age of twin- and triple-screw boats?  No doubt.

All photos by WVD, who enjoyed this gallivant through the archives.

And speaking of archives, Mr Zuckerberg reminded me this morning that nine years ago exactly, the sixth boro was seeing the complicated lading of the tugs and barges being taken by heavylift ship to West Africa.  There were so many challenges that I called the posts “groundhog day” like the movie about a guy having to use many many “re-do’s” before he could get it right.

 

Port of Cleveland OH

To repeat what I said yesterday, this was supposed to be a visit to get photos of tugs and ships in ice.  The Cuyahoga may be quite cold, but no ice . . . .

This shot is taken from the Carter Road Bridge looking toward Collision Bend and the bug venues.

Under the Rte 2 Bridge, Alpena awaits her 76th season!  She makes me feel young!

In resplendent light last summer late, I caught her heading northbound mid-Lake Huron.

Again, I imagined ice;  two weeks earlier and I likely would have seen it.

The yellow of the water makes more vivid the yellow of her hull.

Some crew is maintaining boiler pressure.

And when the season begins, Alpena will back out of this dock on the old river, turn to port and head back to work for her 76th season.

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who looks forward to seeing her steaming on the Lakes again this summer.

Previous Cleveland posts on tugster include this and this with laker Buffalo,  and this with–among other things–Iowa towing Sea Eagle II up the Cuyahoga.   There are others also if you just use the search window.

 

Freshwater Tugs 3

Click here for previous posts in this series.  I add these now in response to a reader who says  . . .”but we have ship assist and harbor tugs in the Great Lakes as well.”  And the most iconic of those are the GL tugs, an old fleet that has been not only maintained but also updated.

Here are ones I’ve photographed this month.  Vermont dates from 1914 and Washington from 1925, and they are still on the duty roster.

These first two photos were taken in Buffalo, said to once have been the 3rd busiest port in the world.

In the port of Cleveland, much remediated from when the river burned most conspicuously,

Iowa, dating from 1915, towed Sea Eagle II up river.

 

Nebraska, 1929, was coming through a very busy railroad bridge here on the Maumee in Toledo.

Mississippi dates from 1916.

Idaho, 1931 and  the last of this series to be built, was behind this fence in Detroit on the Rouge River.

In previous years, I’ve posted many times about a GL tug stranded in the Erie Canal.

Not all the GL tugs have this profile.  For example there are some converted YTBs like Erie and Huron.  And recently, tugs that were previously only in saltwater have made their ways to the Inland Seas.

All photos here by Will Van Dorp.