Towboat likes tight quarters of the Houston Ship Channel

Brooklyn1

Capt. Ralph Castillo was maneuvering the 70-foot pushboat, San Brooklyn, making his way through the narrow passage tightened with traffic and typical of the City Docks stretch of the Houston Ship Channel in Houston.

San Brooklyn is owned by Shamrock Marine, a subsidiary of Houston-based Buffalo Marine Service and the sole provider of bare boat equipment to its parent company. Buffalo Marine, founded in 1935 by Thomas Studdert, provides bunkering and line-haul service in the channel from Houston to Galveston and east along the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway to Lake Charles, La., and west to Freeport, Texas.
 

San Brooklyn is a 70-foot, 1,500-hp pushboat built at Sneed Shipbuilding’s yard in Channelview, Texas. The boat is named after Brooklyn Studdert, daughter of Tim Studdert, Buffalo Marine’s VP of operations and president of Shamrock Marine, a Buffalo Marine subsidiary.

“It’s tight quarters everywhere in here and a real challenge, especially after a good rain causes the current to really run,” said Castillo. “But it gets real complicated where the Old River meets the San Jacinto River and they both join the Houston Ship Channel.”

And that is where we are headed to pick up Buffalo Marine’s new tank barge, the 295-foot Shamrock 500, moored at the Old River Fleeting Area, a loop of water formed most of the way around a large sandbar.

The barge was fleeted with a hundred or more barges belonging to most of the big name petroleum transportation companies working the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the inland river system stemming off the Mississippi River.

San Brooklyn, built at Sneed Shipbuilding’s yard in Channelview, Texas, is named after Brooklyn Studdert, daughter of Tim Studdert, Buffalo Marine’s vice president of operations and president of Shamrock Marine.

The tug is powered by two 750-hp Cummins QSK 19 mains with 6:1 ratio Twin Disc 5222 gears and a pair of Sound 68-by-56-inch propellers. Cummins installed larger injectors and pistons to boost the horsepower from 660 to 750. The experiment was deemed a success after a year of monitoring the engine’s performance.

“The Cummins engines have been a dream on the Brooklyn,” said Tom Marian, general counsel and CAO at Buffalo Marine. “No problems whatsoever.”

“You’ve got to have your ducks in a row when you’re running this place,” said Castillo as we made our way back to the Buffalo Marine office and moorage located on a dead-end reach of what used to be Buffalo Bayou at the City Docks, tucked in behind Brady Island. “It’s just so busy.”

 

Tankerman Brandon Rowe in San Brooklyn’s engine room. The tug is powered by two 750-hp Cummins QSK 19 mains powering a pair of Sound 68-by-56-inch propellers through Twin Disc 5222 gears with a 6:1 ratio.

Rowe faces up San Brooklyn with its new 295-foot tank barge Shamrock 500.

 

Capt. Ralph Castillo at the controls of San Brooklyn. Buffalo Marine provides bunkering and line-haul services the length of the Ship Channel and along the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway from Lake Charles, La., to Freeport, Texas.

 

The boat offers its crew comfortable facilities, including the spacious and well appointed galley.

Between duties Deck Hand Ty Walder and Tankerman Rowe take a break in the crew mess area.

 

By Professional Mariner Staff