Nimble Seaway Trident will keep commerce moving along the St. Lawrence River
The St. Lawrence Seaway System represents a critical part of America’s industrial economy. A new ice-strengthened tugboat will help keep the waterway open and the cargo moving.
The 60-foot, 1,320-hp Seaway Trident entered service earlier this year for the U.S. Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corp. (GLS) in Massena, N.Y. Washburn & Doughty built the versatile twin-screw tugboat in East Boothbay, Maine, using plans developed by Glosten.
Seaway Trident replaces the 500-hp Performance, which entered service in the late 1990s. Seaway Trident will handle a wide range of jobs, from buoy tending to barge towing to ice management. It also can be equipped with a steel blade on its side to scrape away ice from the lock walls.
“Trident is going to be a much bigger and much more powerful tug,” said Chris Guimond, director of lock operations and marine services for the GLS. “It can be used for vessel assist, and it can be used for buoy work and icebreaking as well. I will just say that it is a more useful tugboat in general because of its size and power.”
The GLS is jointly responsible for management and operation of the St. Lawrence Seaway System with its Canadian counterpart, the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp. The 750-mile system consists of 15 locks that collectively facilitate thousands of vessel calls and billions of dollars in trade each year.
Just two locks, Snell and Eisenhower, are located within the United States, not far from Massena. The Seaway has about a dozen employees located at the U.S. Department of Transportation Headquarters in Washington, D.C., and another 120 or so employees who help operate and maintain the two critical locks.
Trident, which left Washburn & Doughty this spring, is the second new tugboat to arrive on the U.S. side of the Seaway System in three years. It joins the 118-by-45-foot Seaway Guardian, which Gulf Island Shipyards delivered in 2020 using plans from Robert Allan Ltd.
Seaway Guardian is currently undergoing a drydocking to address an issue discovered last fall, according to Seaway Administrator Adam Tindall-Schlicht, who was appointed to the position in November 2022 by President Joe Biden.
“In late 2022, as we were approaching the traditional end of the season buoy run where buoys are removed from the St. Lawrence, it became clear that a zinc anode loosened, causing an automatic portside engine shutdown,” he explained.
The decision to address the issue in drydock came after discussions between GLS maritime personnel, representatives from Caterpillar, and marine surveyors. Tindall-Schlicht said they opted to be conservative with the $24 million vessel.
The 5,350-hp tugboat is on track to return to service this fall. When that happens, the U.S. side of the Seaway System will effectively have a new towing fleet with capabilities that far exceed its existing tugboats.
“This is a wonderful opportunity to improve marine operations at the Seaway once the Trident and the Guardian come into full operation,” Tindall-Schlicht said. “These investments the (Seaway) is making are part of $1 billion in overall capital asset and infrastructure renewal over the last 10 years.
“These vessels are going to provide essential services that our customers and carriers depend on,” he continued. “They have come to expect a 99 percent or better reliability of lock availability once the annual shipping season is a go.”
Trident functions a lot like a utility player on a baseball team — it does a little of everything. In the warmer months, it can assist with maintenance within the Snell and Eisenhower locks and tend aids to navigation within the U.S. section of the waterway.
Thanks to its Schottel z-drives, Trident is much nimbler than Performance, the tugboat it replaces. Crews should be able to position the tugboat alongside a buoy much more easily than with the conventional twin-screw Performance. From there, Trident’s Heila telescoping crane can lift the navigation aid from the water for cleaning or replacing.
Trident’s agility will come in handy when it’s working within the narrow confines of the locks themselves. Guimond said the new tug can turn on a dime, spin a complete circle, and easily walk sideways to the left or right.
“When you are working with a regular shaft and rudder vessel, the turning radius is much larger,” he said. “It is like a night and day difference, really.”
Trident also can tow the Seaway’s 100-foot barge to assist with buoy work. There, too, its agility and maneuverability will come in handy, Guimond said. “The barge has a bow thruster, but with Trident it probably won’t be needed all that often,” he said.
Trident is expected to really shine in cold weather. The much larger Guardian will handle the lion’s share of icebreaking around the two U.S. locks and nearby anchorages maintained by American tugs. But Trident will help keep the waterway open once Guardian has broken a path by pushing, bumping, or otherwise corralling large ice chunks so the current can carry them downriver.
Peter Soles, who works in marine operations and business development for Seattle-based Glosten, said the hull was built to mirror ABS C0 standards for working in ice. The Schottel drives also meet international standards for ice operations.
“It has a lot of additional framing in the bow and in the stern,” Soles said. “We didn’t have to include it in the stern, but we wanted the boat to be able to bump ice and navigate in ice going ahead or astern.”
Keeping the lock walls clear of ice also will be Trident’s responsibility. Achieving that required some innovation. Glosten designed the tug with a removable steel scraper that can be installed on the port or starboard quarter. As designed, the captain will position the steel blade against the lock walls and maneuver back and forth to keep the ice in check.
“It’s like a Bic razor, on its side, hanging off the bitts,” Soles said.
Other innovations built into the design are intended to reduce maintenance down the road. Each exhaust stack has bolt-on casings that can be removed. The remaining space is large enough to fit a Caterpillar C18 engine. That will allow for repowers in a matter of days, instead of requiring the time and expense of performing this work in drydock.
The fully enclosed bulwarks have a similar function. Over time, the bulwarks will see less corrosion while helping to provide additional stiffening. “That is meant to prolong the useful life of the bulwarks and make it easier to wash and maintain the boat and keep it looking good,” Soles explained.
Trident will typically work with two to four crewmembers who will go home most nights when the work is done. But given the tug’s relatively small size, designers gave special care to crew comfort while they are on board.
The main deck features an open-concept layout with a mess/lounge area, a small galley forward with a kitchenette, and ample storage. The vessel has two cabins on the lower level in the forecastle, providing for additional headroom above the top bunk. Washburn & Doughty finished many of the crew spaces, including the bunks, in rich mahogany. “The yard did a fantastic job with the finish work, so everything looks really attractive inside,” Soles said.
The propulsion package on Trident consists of two 660-hp Cat C18 engines paired with ice-strengthened Schottel SRP 210 thrusters through carbon fiber shafts. Bollard pull is 18 tons, and the tug can hit speeds of 11 knots at full throttle. Two 40-kW Kohler generators provide electrical power.
Out on deck, Trident was equipped to handle a wide range of work. Glosten worked closely with Markey Machinery on the electric headline winch. The design purposefully includes a smaller footprint to conserve space on the bow while still being robust enough to work in cold and ice.
Markey, Soles said, responded with its DESMG-18 unit. Its compact design includes an electric motor and a drive gear located below deck in the forecastle. The package reduced the winch’s size while keeping critical components safely out of the elements.
On the aft deck is a 5-hp Schoellhorn-Albrecht capstan and the Heila Cranes telescoping crane that can lift 5.2 metric tons. Schuyler Cos. supplied the fendering and paints came from International and PPG.
Tindall-Schlicht, Guimond and their Seaway colleagues celebrated the tug’s arrival in Massena earlier this spring. They expect the tugboat will support the critical work at the Seaway for many years ahead. •