"shiver" wrote in message
...
MWB wrote:

You're welcome, I could go on for hours and hours.

Please do.

I'm sure there are many in this group that would be very interested in
hearing details about what it was like to work on a tug.

Tugs give a rough ride. I didn't mind the 20 plus foot seas, the 10 foot
seas bothered my stomach. I slept like a baby in rough weather and I think I
was a rare case. Looking at the same 5 faces for 90 plus days is a
challenge.

Prior to towing an oil rig we'd have a meeting, even though we knew who was
going to do what, we still talked it over. We would even practice this.
There would only be two of us on the deck and we knew who was going to do
what and when. The tug is going up and down, we're taking seas and getting
wet. I wore a Red Sox cap, t-shirt, shorts, sneakers and a life vest. You
can't set a tool down, it would be swept overboard.

We backed the tug up to the oil rig and handed them a 150' steel cable which
they attached to the rig. That was attached to a 50' braded nylon surge line
24" in circumference. Then we let out the tow line 1800' feet, then we'd put
chaffing gear on the line to protect it. It takes three tugs to move an oil
rig and the speed is about 2-4 knots. A rig move from Texas to Florida could
take two weeks.

Towing a barge to Colombia was a lot of fun. There wasn't much to do and we
all got our share of the sun. At times I found it boring, but then I'd think
about my wife shoveling snow in Maine and those thoughts disappeared.

I've had a cruise boat ask me if I'd tell them my position, so they'd know
where they were. And I did, this was before satellite navigation, we used a
sextant, which I was very good at. I've has a USCG cutter point a cannon at
me, been hit by flying fish, been buzzed by the Blue Angels ( for an hour )
while going up the Mississippi River, got a free case of beer (long story)
in a bar in Colombia...I had the time of my life.

Every day at sea, it seemed something happened. Going up a river, everyone
would be in the wheel house because it was something different. Rivers and
Bayous were a rare treat.


Mark