Current News Items
Of Interest To Tugboat Enthusiasts
2007
The world press and other media closely monitor
what happens in the US and elsewhere. Here are brief summaries
of recent mentions. Amplifying details may often found in the
regional reports of TugBitts.
Jul 13. While at sea with a battle group, the destroyer
USS JAME E. WILLIAMS (DDG 95) tries to put a practice towline
over to the USS FORREST SHERMAN (DDG 98) and wraps a nine-inch
line around one of its own propeller shaft. (The destroyer returns
to Norfolk for untangling and repairs.)
Jul 14. A tugboat operator spots the body of a female
in the Fraser River in Delta, British Columbia.
Jul 17. Workers on a state-owned barge near Cross,
South Carolina spot a severed foot. It is so badly decomposed
that the sex and even the race of its owner cannot be immediately
determined.
Jul 27. The undocumented US-flagged tug MEGAN GARRET
and its unlicensed skipper are stopped by the Coast Guard at Miami
because of a nearby maritime casualty. The tug is told to stop
work until a licensed master can be found and documentation problems
can be resolved.
Jul 28. A seaplane crashes into the Willamette River
in Oregon a few hundred feet from a tugboat. Its operator dives
into the water hoping to rescue the two experienced pilots onboard
but they are dead.
Jul 31. In British Columbia, the wing of a seaplane
hits the water of the Barkley Sound while landing and the plane
cartwheels. Its six occupants escape with minor cuts and bruises.
Wreckage of the plane is recovered from 30 feet of water by Wichito
Contracting’s tug COMEALONG. (TugBitts was unable to further
identify this tug or its owner.)
Aug 17. In the Netherland Antilles at St Martens,
a large barge being towed by the tug JASON T and tailed by the
tug BIG DOG strikes the wooded fender protecting the Simpson Bay
Bridge and shatters the fendering. The barge is owned by Volkers
Stevin Caribbean.
Aug 17. At Iberia, Louisiana, spectators watch as
a barge carrying a 200,000-pound bridge span is maneuvered between
two towers by the towboat MISS MICHELLE and then the span is rotated
ninety degrees by special hydraulic trailers into position. Contractors
BOH Brothers and the Dutch heavy-lift firm Mammoet cooperate in
making the move.
Aug 20. A barge carrying heavy equipment and a tank
truck with 10,000 litres of diesel fuel capsizes off northern
Vancouver Island in British Columbia while under tow by the small
tug KATHY L. The resulting oil slick is over two kilometres long
and growing.
Aug 20. A Seaspan barge catches fire at the Vancouver
Shipyard in Vancouver, British Columbia, and a deputy fire chief
expresses relief that his men contained the fire to the barge.
