20 Nov

With a history of innovation, AmNav is ready for the future

Professional Mariner StaffTugboats & Towing
Capt. Marc Fankhauser in the pilothouse of the AmNav tug Revolution. (Photos by Alan Haig-Brown) It would be an understatement to call the San Francisco Bay ship docking market highly competitive. As vessel and crew costs escalate, the several fleets that crowd the market fight for share. Among the most forceful of these is AmNav Maritime Services.   Upstart schoolteacher…
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20 Nov

Slow-to-arrive z-drive units create headaches for tug operators and builders

Professional Mariner StaffMaritime News, Tugboats & Towing
Ocean Henry Bain is a new tug employing controllable-pitch propellers. The vessel is the third in a series of 5,000-hp z-drive tugs built for Ocean Group, a Quebec company that operates on the St. Lawrence River. The tug has Rolls-Royce drives with CP props in nozzles. (Mac McKay) What takes longer than ordering a new Toyota Prius, or, say, obtaining…
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24 Oct

Turn it off!

Professional Mariner StaffA Mariner's Notebook, Tugboats & Towing
It’s 0430 in New York Harbor and promising to be a very busy day. There’s a line of ships stretched out from the “Con Hook” range to Ambrose Tower. I’m steering from the upper wheelhouse of a 4200 hp tug, pushing a light oil barge, and bound for Bayway barge docks. I’m relieved that I’ve managed to stay ahead of…
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06 Aug

New tug simulator makes debut at West Coast training facility

Professional Mariner StaffLicensing & Training, Tugboats & Towing
By Gregory M. Walsh  Pacific Maritime Institute in Seattle has developed a training program incorporating what it said is the only full-scale marine simulation program in the United States developed exclusively for tugboat operators. PMI's marine simulation theater, designed as an actual tugboat wheelhouse, includes full controls for tractor-style tugs and conventional tugs, simulation programs involving typical tugboat scenarios and…
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14 May

Foss, with help from port agencies, developing first ‘green’ tug

Professional Mariner StaffTugboats & Towing
With hybrid power packages popping up in practically every arena, it was inevitable that the tugboat industry would soon come forth with its own version, especially considering the long history of diesel-electric power for tugboats in the last century and for other types of workboats in the current century. Now it looks as though concern over air pollution in the…
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28 Mar

Bouchard’s ATB fleet leads the pack

Professional Mariner StaffTugboats & Towing
It is hardly a race, but Bouchard Transportation of New York finished up in 2006 with the largest fleet of articulated tug barges (ATBs) in the nation. Other East Coast companies, notably Penn Maritime and K-Sea Transportation, are seemingly working hard to best the Bouchard ATB fleet.At the end of the year Bouchard, which has been converting existing tug-barge assets…
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