As a 600-foot-long Korean-flagged car carrier glided through the Chesapeake Bay at 7 mph on a recent afternoon, a welcoming committee arrived in the form of two Baltimore-based tugboats. The tugs matched the ship’s speed; one closed on the port side of the freighter and the other came to the stern.
With just 4 inches between the 100-foot-long Vicki McAllister and the massive ship that had the tailgate, a local sailor on the tugboat and the freighter’s crew connected the two ships – vastly different in size, function and origins – without words with a thick drag line.
The boat and ship were now intertwined for the next 90 minutes as the ship made its way to the Dundalk Marine Terminal in the Port of Baltimore. The tug served as an insurance policy as the ship slid past the wreck of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, then helped it glide deftly to a mooring.
The Vicki, one of only six harbor tugs based in Baltimore, regularly escorts ships, some as small as 300 feet long, others up to 4,000 feet, in and out of the harbor. It is a dexterous dance; the tugboats maneuver inches away from the ships, tie a line to a bitt (a pole on the outside of the ship) and then are released, moved and tied to another area, while the ships are loaded with cars, containers or other goods in keep moving.
The small but mighty tugboats are often not announced. But they have received more attention since March 26, when the container ship Dali lost power, hitting a Key Bridge support pier and bringing down the structure. The collapse killed six men working on the span and blocked the canal, hampering port trade for months.
Before the collision, two tugboats helped the Dali out of its mooring. But in accordance with national regulations, the tugboats were not obliged to assist the ship under the bridge.
Some observers argued afterwards that if the tugboats had guided the ship further, they could have prevented the disaster. Others were less certain. Could the tugboats have prevented the 100,000-ton Dali from destroying the bridge?
“I don’t want to speculate and get ahead of the NTSB,” said Brian Vahey, vice president of the Atlantic region for American Waterways Operators – an advocate for the tugboat industry.
The National Transportation Safety Board is studying what exactly caused the Key Bridge disaster and will make recommendations in its final report to prevent such incidents in the future.
Since the disaster, tugboats (five in total) have towed the damaged Dali from the wreck site and returned it to port. They escorted more than a hundred deep-draft ships through the debris-strewn canal. Tugboats will again escort the Dali in the coming days as it sails to Norfolk, Virginia, for further repairs.
Business at the Port of Baltimore slowed, but the tide has begun to turn in recent weeks and activity is expected to increase steadily following the June 10 reopening of the entire 700-foot-wide, 50-foot-deep shipping channel. Previously, more than 200 deep-draft ships called at Baltimore every month and authorities hope that trade will return to that level this year.
Each of these huge ships needs help parking. And the six tugboats are ready to assist.
‘A contact sport’
Some species of ants can lift more than 50 times their body weight, and tugs are cut from even stronger cloth. The Vicki weighs about 450 tons, but can tow a ship weighing more than 100,000 tons (200 times larger), such as the 300-meter Juno Horizon, which it assisted earlier this month.
Part of its pulling power lies in the size of its 4,650 hp engines. More than 70% of the Vicki’s space is devoted to the engine room, Captain Austen Parish estimates, with the remainder allocated to fuel tanks, navigation and living quarters (tugboat captains live aboard for two weeks and then take two weeks off).
The exterior of the tug is lined with tires (some full, others cut into smaller pieces) to provide cushioning when escorting turns into collisions.
“It’s a contact sport,” explains Mike Reagoso, vice president of Mid-Atlantic Operations for McAllister Towing, which operates tugboats along the East Coast.
Occasionally, a ship entering Baltimore requires the assistance of just one tugboat. Often there are two, and sometimes, especially on ultra-large container ships or when the weather is challenging, three or more tugs can help.
Three of the local tugboats are owned by McAllister and three others by Moran Towing. Both work closely with the Association of Maryland Pilots because it is a licensed harbor pilot, a local expert, who ultimately pilots a ship into Baltimore and guides the tugboat captains through the process. Freighter owners pay pilot and tug fees, which vary but typically cost several thousand dollars per trip.
Sometimes a pilot directs a tug to the stern, then to the starboard side and then somewhere else. When a pilot gives instructions via VHF radio during a transit, the captain of the tug repeats them for clarity.
“It’s a collective judgment,” Parish said. “I have to feel safe when I get into that position. On the other hand, he needs us where he needs us.”
Parish, 29, grew up on the water in Kent County, Maryland, on the East Coast, trained as a sailor at Texas A&M University and sailed on deep-sea vessels before becoming a tugboat captain.
“I really enjoy the challenge of maneuvering in tight spaces and the tugboats provide a taste of that,” he said.
On June 7, Parish captained the Vicki McAllister past the Key Bridge wreck. As the tugboat sailed past, steam poured from the Dale Pyatt, the largest clamshell dredger in the Western Hemisphere, while the Chesapeake 1000, the largest floating crane on the East Coast, slowly picked up another piece of debris.
The tugboat then sailed past Fort Carroll — an artificial island designed in the 19th century by Robert E. Lee of the Army Corps of Engineers, now abandoned and emitting a stench of bird guano — and then a day cruise ship. Parish blew the tugboat’s horn, much to the delight of the waving passengers.
“People love tugboats,” Parish said.
Push to park
A blue and white speck – the car carrier Morning Menad – then appeared on the horizon and three miles south of the Key Bridge location, four ships met in the calm waters: the huge freighter full of cars, a small boat carrying a Pilot from Maryland and two tugboats, ready to provide guidance.
As the Ro-Ro freighter (its load of vehicles can ‘roll on and off’) continued towards Baltimore, pilot Mark Baummer boarded. He steered the Vicki to the stern of the Morning Menad, where Parish deftly positioned the boat just inches behind the ship, each ship traveling at 6.5 knots (just over 7 miles per hour).
Crew members on the motor carrier lowered a messenger line – a thin rope – to Seaman Kramer Whitelaw, who tied the tug’s large rope to it. Members of the freighter’s crew, all wearing hard hats and one with a cigarette in his mouth, picked up the rope and attached it to their ship.
Whitelaw, of Sparrows Point, Maryland, said he usually communicates with the crew — who come from different countries and rarely speak English — with hand signals. Both Parish and Whitelaw say they try to be good “ambassadors” for the area; in some cases they are the first people, apart from each other, that a crew has seen in more than a month.
Once tied together, tugboats can help the big ship if something goes wrong due to mechanical, human or weather conditions.
“If something crazy happens, hopefully we can be part of the solution,” Reagoso said.
But on this day – a calm day – the Vicki and its towing partner, the Bridget McAllister, simply sailed alongside the ship until it was ready to park. At that moment, the pilot ordered one tug to pull the ship and the other, more aft, tug to push over, causing the ship to rotate.
It was a fairly simple parking job, but every job is a little different.
“You can pull your car into a parking lot and some of them you just park straight ahead, and some of them you have to parallel park with 37 turns in the middle,” Parish said.
Port safety
Tugs are an essential part of the port ecosystem, especially with a renewed national focus on infrastructure protection. They can provide a non-structural option to prevent the type of disaster that occurs at the Key Bridge.
The Maryland bridge that most ocean-going vessels pass under is the Bay Bridge at Annapolis, but the state does not require tugboats to assist ships there.
The state has considered changing that policy since the Key Bridge collapse, Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld said, but given the speed (about 15 knots) that ships travel at that point in their journey, more substantial tugs would be needed , he said.
“You need a different type of tugboat for that,” Wiedefeld said in an interview June 12 at the Port of Baltimore. “There are things you would have to invest in to have them.”
The state is reviewing “realistic” short- and long-term options, Wiedefeld said, to protect the bridge.
Back on the Vicki, with the Morning Menad parked and the mission complete, Whitelaw detached the tug from the freighter and Parish put it in reverse. He steers the ship using the controls in each hand, while using his right foot to operate a winch – the mechanism that coils the tow rope. It’s no different than playing the piano or drums.
“I’m not a musician, but I’ve always wanted to be one,” Parish said. “This is as close as I can get.”
Parish guided the Vicki back to port, but it did not stay there long. There was another large ship headed to Baltimore, and help was needed to park.
