Tugboats

I am watching cable news as it shows the disabled Carnival Triumph cruise liner being towed to port in Mobile, Alabama. Four tugs work to tow the liner to port as ocean currents and wind combine to push the liner off course. One large tugboat tows the liner with a hawser attached to the liner’s bow while other tugboats push against the side of the liner to offset current and wind. The force vectors produced by the forward tugboat, the side tugboats, the current, and the wind blowing against the 893 feet long, 14 story tall liner must combine to produce a composite force that points in the direction of port.

Tugboats are cool. They’re the 4-wheel drive vehicles of the ocean. They’re small but have powerful engines. Tugboat engines are often the same as those used in railroad locomotives. The propeller is driven mechanically rather than by converting the engine output to power electric motors as is done with diesel-electric locomotives. The pulling power of a boat is called it’s “bollard pull” and for tugboats it is measured in tons.

The coolest tugboats are seagoing tugs such as those used by maritime salvage companies. Deep sea salvage tugs must be able traverse thousands of miles of open sea, locate a ship in distress in the midst of a hurricane, hook up to it, and tow it to safety through mountainous waves and treacherous gales. As I watch the Carnival Triumph being towed toward land, I am reminded of a book I read long ago.

One of the most interesting and compelling books I’ve read is the non-fiction book titled The Grey Seas Under by famed Canadian writer Farley Mowat. The book follows the legendary Atlantic salvage tug Foundation Franklin through many daring rescues in the North Atlantic during the Great Depression and World War II. The book concludes with Franklin’s final voyage, during which the tug was battered and severely damaged while attempting to tow the Motor Ship Arosa through a North Atlantic hurricane. The book, first published in 1958 and still in print, is a gripping saga of the sea.

Farley Mowat is a master storyteller, and for those who read The Grey Seas Under and want more deep-sea drama, more is available. Foundation Franklin had a sister tug named Foundation Josephine. In 1961, Farley Mowat released a book about Foundation Josephine called The Serpent’s Coil. Reading either book will drop you into an entirely different world.