The Lure of the Sea

My daughter-in-law Heather sent me this cool photo recently of a tug and barge coming through Hull Gut south of Boston Harbor. In the foreground is a lobster boat heading out to check traps. The photo has all kinds of pleasant associations for me. First of all, our middle son Joe is steering the tug and barge loaded with 80,000 barrels (3.3 million gallons) of ethanol through Hull Gut, the narrow straight at the end of the town of Hull where Heather and our oldest son Matt live.

Matt also works on a similar vessel as does our youngest son Ned. This makes it convenient when people ask what our boys are doing. "Still on the tugs," I can reply. The tugs and barges belong to Reinauer Transportation Company, based on Staten Island, New York. The company avoids having relatives working together so the boys are on separate tugs.

The boys (they're not really boys anymore) drive down to New York every two weeks from their homes south of Boston. Once at work, the barge takes on petroleum products, usually at a refinery in northern New Jersey. Then they head for tank farms up and down the east coast between Maine and Florida, with occasional runs to Louisiana or Texas. After two weeks, they drive home for two weeks off. So effectively, they have twenty-six weeks of (unpaid) vacation. It's great if you don't mind being on the boat for two weeks.

The photo above is a bit deceptive, because the 42 foot lobster boat in the foreground, which belongs to Heather's brother Chad, makes the 424 foot tug and barge look smaller than they are. The tug, the Kristy Ann, is locked to the stern of the barge by a pair of hydraulic rams. The barge is less prettily named RTC 80. Unless the tug or barge needs repairs, the two units will remain together.

Joe is first mate on the Kristy Ann. He works six hour shifts throughout the two week "hitch," alternating with the captain. There is a second mate and one deckhand. There is also an engineer and two bargemen.

Joe's barge had loaded product two days previous at the refinery in New Jersey, and travelled northeast along the coast and then through the Cape Cod Canal, traveling at 10 nautical miles per hour. As it approached Hull Gut very early in the morning, an assist tug based in Boston came alongside. The gut is narrow and the current strong and it's good to have help in such a place. After unloading part of her cargo at the tank farm in Braintree, Kristy Ann headed north to Portland, Maine before returning to New York.

How did our three sons end up as merchant mariners? Good question.  It was a matter of interests skipping a generation. My father was a sea-going man.  He joined the Merchant Marine at age 17, got himself torpedoed in the Pacific in WWII, then settled into a career as pilot of the Boston Fire Department's fireboat. When the kids were growing up, we made an annual 1,700 mile trek from Minnesota out to Hull where my parents and siblings lived. The boys developed their nautical genes on grandpa's sailboat.

Two of my brothers worked for Reinauer and when our boys finished school and were looking for work, one of my brothers suggested the tugs. Matt has been working on the tugs the longest. He's in charge of the barge when he goes to work, making sure the right fuel gets into the right compartment and also insuring the barge is balanced. Joe passed a series of difficult Coast guard examinations, and after extensive on-the-job experience, he became a first mate. He'll eventually become a captain, the good Lord willing. Ned is a deckhand. The deckhand cooks the noon meal, keeps the tug clean, and, in the course of the year. chips and repaints the entire tug.

The tug-barge combination is longer than a football field and Joe says he appreciates having his deckhand up on the bow with a walkie-talkie during landing operations.

Carry on gentlemen and we shall see you ashore.

Kristy Ann passing through Hull Gut with assist tug.