Tugboat Enthusiasts Society

This is the meeting notice from the 2006 Gathering

It is provided as a historic record

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THE DOWNEAST GATHERING
at
PORTLAND, MAINE
FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, through SUNDAY, AUGUST 20, 2006

The Holiday Inn On the Bay and Convention Centers
Talk tugs, see tugs, and ride on tugs! Come to Portland later this summer and ride a tug during Portland’s 5th Annual MS Tugboat Muster

• Registration will start late in the afternoon of Friday at the Holiday Inn. That evening, the
Society’s Board of Directors will meet but other attendees are free to go out on the town.
• On Saturday, a free breakfast is followed by a luxury bus tour to the extensive Maine
Maritime Museum at Bath to inspect its collection of tug models and other nautical materials.
After two hours there, we drive to the end of one of Maine’s most-scenic peninsulas for luncheon at the Winslow family’s restaurant at Robinson's Wharf in Southport (attendees select and pay for their own meals). Dave Winslow will try to have one of the Winslow tugs there at the wharf and perhaps Eliot Winslow himself, still spry and story-spinning at 99, may be present. On the way back to Portland, we will stop at tug-builders Washburn & Doughty where either Bruce D. or Bruce W. will show us what tugs are under construction. (Hint. W& D build Moran’s tugs and several tugs for Moran, and perhaps others, should be at various stages of construction.)
For those who do not want to join Saturday’s tour, there are many attractions and shops in and
around Portland, especially in the Old Port District, where railroad buffs can find a narrow-gauge railroad museum (www.mngrr.org) offering narrow-gauge rides along the waterfront’s Front Street. And the giant shopping mall that is Freeport (and that includes L.L. Bean’s flagship store plus over 170 other boutique stores!) is exactly 17.8 miles from the Holiday Inn.
• Saturday night will feature a banquet with cash bar and awards. The evening program will be the PowerPoint presentation Diesel Railroad Tugs by Preston Cook.
• After the free Sunday breakfast, take a leisurely walk down to the Maine State Pier where the
tugs start assembling in the late morning. It will be possible to visit the participating tugs before
the start of the day’s excitement. High point of the Gathering is the Tugboat Muster, which
features a 1 PM tug parade along the Portland waterfront, followed by tug races farther out in the harbor. Owners and operators have assured the Gathering organizers that every Society member attending the Gathering will be a guest on some tug.

To give an idea off what tugs might be present, tugs at the Muster last year were McAllister's
PETE (at 7,000hp, its most-powerful tug), the tractor VICKI M McALLISTER, the ex-YTB
JEFFERY K McALLISTER and the storied FOURNIER GIRLS. (The sturdy and beloved
STAMFORD was at Portsmouth where Moran needed a fourth tug to handle two jobs on the
same tide.) Winslow brought his PEGGY WINSLOW, Hartley brought his ex-YTB SEGUIN
crowded with friends and rellies, each in a pale-blue tee-shirt, while the Maine Maritime
Academy sent its training tug PENTAGOET and Interport had its perky EDDIE R present and
running just fine. This year, maybe the US’s oldest tug, the 1874-built SISTERS, will reappear at the Muster and try to continue its streak of pushing victories over the VICKI.

Why Portland?

Besides the good fun that is the Tugboat Muster, we selected Portland as
this year’s tug port because Portland has a goodly number of busy tugs. One major reason
is that Portland is the largest crude-oil port on the US East Coast—just across the harbor at
South Portland is the “Pipeline” where almost 500 tankers a year unload crude oil into two
pipelines to Quebec. Portland is also the third largest oil terminal port on the US East
Coast, the second-largest international passenger port in New England, and exceeds
Boston’s total tonnage by nearly two million tons. Barges and product tankers also arrive
frequently.

Portland is one of the nicer small cites in the US and makes a great jumping off point for a
leisurely summer vacation in Maine. The city is easily accessible by air, rail, (AMTRAK’s
“Downeaster”) or highway and the Inn provides shuttle service to both the airport and railroad
station. Shuttle. Details on the Holiday Inn By the Bay area available at www.innbythebay.com )
The Gathering is limited to TES members plus family and friends. Included in the price of $100
per person are two breakfasts, Saturday’s tour, the Saturday night’s banquet, and Sunday’s ride on a tug. Attendees must pay for all other expenses but the Holiday Inn (1-800-345-5050) offers a special TES member rate for rooms. The number of rooms is limited and August is the peak month of Maine’s short summer season.

We hope we will be seeing you on August 18-20.
Organizer Jon Johanson and helpers George Barrett, Hugh Ware, and Roberta Freeman

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OVERVIEW OF THE SATURDAY PROGRAM BY PRESTON COOK

Diesel Railroad Tugs is a 90 minute PowerPoint program that covers the history of the development and application of diesel power to railroad tugboats. It provides a look back at the early diesel power applications in the 1920s and 1930s, and progresses to the Postwar tug building programs that resulted in many railroads retiring their entire fleets of steam tugs and replacing them with diesels. The railroad uses of tugs are also covered, including carfloat operations, barge handling, and ship docking. A number of the railroad boats are then traced into their subsequent years of commercial service following the termination of marine operations by their original owners.

The Diesel Railroad Tugs presentation was originally developed and shown as a 35mm color slide program for a number of years, and was converted to PowerPoint in 2005.

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