"ZP Chalone"
(Sister Ship)

  My next job was Lead Captain towing two tandem tows from New Orleans to San Francisco, CA.  The tow consisted of three tractor tugs and three barges and the tugs had no towing winches.  The first challenge was trying to figure out how to make the tug go straight,  After a couple of exasperating hours, I finally figured it out but it wasn't easy.  Then how to get through the Canal without winches. We had to drop wires in the anchorage in Colon and then a crew of laborers laboriously figure-eighted the towing wires on the barges.  Because we had three tugs and three barges, everybody got under way.  The pilot was not impressed with the way I had rigged the barges for tow and I had to do some very fast talking to get us underway.  We eventually got to San Francisco and another adventure completed safely.  Some of the tugs are still  working in Holland for Kotug.

"Esther Moran" with sludge barge at Wards Island, NY

The "Esther" and the "M" have been sold to Canada.
 

  Moran Towing in New York called me to work for them towing the big New York City 18,000 ton sludge Barges.  Towing New York poop to New Jersey, well, 105 miles off the coast.   I was master of the "Esther Moran", one of two of the largest inspected tugs on the East Coast.   I towed sludge all winter and the barge never iced up because the sludge was always "cooking" and created a lot of heat.  I even made the NY papers when the "Elizabeth Moran" was sunk in a collision with a freighter near Graves End and we were able to rescue two of the two crew in May of 1988.  The fog was so thick I had a hard time seeing past the bow, and every time we got close to one of the men in the water the wheel wash blew him away into the fog when I backed down.  Finally the mate jumped in with a line and we were able to pull them aboard. 
My friends all referred to me back then as "Captain Sludge". 

"Buster Bouchard" with barge "B 165"

Dawn the Mate.

Rigging piles.

The Jack-up barge.

    "Tug Nipigon" Leaving the stress of New York I  decided to take an opportunity to run the tug "Nipigon", in the "warm and clear" waters of the Bahamas, for the international construction  company Balfour Beatty (the same people who built the Chunnel).   It was on an older tug that was a former pulp tug in Canada pushing logs on the Nipigon River.  It was an antique, but I loved it at first sight.  We built a new dock in Governors Harbor in Eleuthera, re-built Potters Cay in Nassau; built  new docks at Morgans Bluff, Andros and built  a new Cruise Berth in Nassau Harbor; a new Straw Market and a new Nassau Harbor Control Tower.  We even built a lagoon on Little Stirrup Cay for a Cruise Ship Company.  It was a great job, towing hot cement loads to the cruise berth and towing cranes, a jack-up, and barges all over the Bahamas.  Eventually we finished in the Bahamas and I moved the floating plant to Puerto Cabello,Venezuela where we re-built an exposed ship loading pier.  We could only work from dawn, pardon the expression, to two in the afternoon when the seas began to build.  So we had the rest of the day off to enjoy the flavor of the port.  The picture at left is Dawn, my mate on the voyage to Puerto Cabello, another good reason not to work in New York.  Working in Venezuela was great, except for the afternoon weather and it made working around a jack-up rig extremely dangerous. I had a placard on the after control station with Spanish commands for the crew.  I kept pronouncing the word for danger, cuidado, with an "s" and the crew thought that was very funny.  Water is a big commodity in Venezuela and we had a water maker.  So the crew boats servicing the anchorage soon became my best friends.  They would wash their boats and take showers and I never had to pay for a ride to shore.  Just as I was beginning to read the newspaper in Spanish, the tug went to Venezuelan Flag and I was relieved by a Venezuelan Captain. Damn!