Length of tow ?

Can only comment as a galley boy aboard the RFA Warden. It being a deep sea tug we did many tows including aircraft carriers to scrap. She was built around the late forty's I think but can say that the winch was a tension winch that would take up the slack and pay out on demand during a tow. As far I know they all had these type of winch's. Sure there where some hairy moments but as I say I was only the galley boy on board so would not profess to know all about it. I do know that if one could see the tow line during a deep sea tow then one would be needing a clean pair of underpants very quickly. Did experience a target tow sinking overnight once which was not supposed to happen. So where was all that wire stowed. On that bloody great winch that kept one awake all night with the constant paying out and taking up.

Only tow I was ever really involved in and that was only from a distance. The Bibby Progress being towed out of Escravos last year heading for Dry Dock in Valetta. Tow line does not look particularly long.

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Originally Posted by Gordon Turnbull

Only tow I was ever really involved in and that was only from a distance. The Bibby Progress being towed out of Escravos last year heading for Dry Dock in Valetta. Tow line does not look particularly long.

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Calm waters and traffic conditions dictate tow length, see a ship in the background, were there more, had tug just left port. Sea state and swell dictate tow length where ever possible, the longer the tow the less strain on both vessels. Tugs don't like towed vessels too near to them as there is the possibility of being over run if tug engine fails, it has been known to happen. It is a rare event for the towed vessel to be smaller than the tug so things are best kept at a distance if circumstances allow.

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Originally Posted by Tony Wilding

just a quick question, should the Towing Point be FWD of the Rudder ?, the reason i ask is many years ago i was out in my Fishing Boat off Broadstairs, Ramsgate Port Control called me up and asked if i could Tow a Boat out of Fuel by the North Foreland Lighthouse back to Rmsgate, i was not far from it, my boat was a Heavily Built open launch, drew 3 feet, weight 3 tons, the other Boat about 10 tons , 32 feet against my 22 feet, connected the Tow line on my Aft Port Side Mooring Post, she would not answer the helm, only at very slow speed, was going round in circles, in the end as it was flat calm put some fenders between us and made fast alongside, we both steered, that worked.

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That is called "towing on the hip", I used to do it all the time shifting materials barges around. :cool:

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Originally Posted by j.sabourn

The boat I went out on looked to me like an ex Navy Torpedo Boat, have the harbour board such a boat Tony..

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When I was on the Partington, late 60's, a Shellmex/BP coastal tanker, discharging in Dover, we had a Sea Cadet vessel tie up alongside overnight, this would have been an ex MTB or fast rescue launch.

Ivan, ship had literally just left the Escravos. About a 3 hour run from Escravos to get over the sand bar IIRC. Quite a few ships around as this is the way to Warri which is I guess the 3rd biggest pot in Nigeria now after Lagos and Ohne.

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Originally Posted by Gordon Turnbull

Ivan, ship had literally just left the Escravos. About a 3 hour run from Escravos to get over the sand bar IIRC. Quite a few ships around as this is the way to Warri which is I guess the 3rd biggest pot in Nigeria now after Lagos and Ohne.

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Thanks Gordon, that explains the short tow length, last time I was in Warri (70's) it was a small port in a backwater, hijackings in those days in abundance on the roads, made my visits by single prop plane in the co-pilots seat skimming the trees (the pilot not me!) Never got on with Nigeria on any of my visits at sea or when shore based, even Pakistan seemed like heaven after visiting there when I lived in Pakistan

Gordon I believe the area where you were towing was not especially deep. This would have probably have been the ruling factor in length of tow. I cant remember the formula for rule of thumb for giving you a good idea how far the bight of the tow wire would have been below the surface, but it was always best to err on the side of safety. The towing I am referring to is deep sea and long passage stuff, going into port is a different ball game and have to shorten up drastically. Rigs as such were always towed on a bridle which was usually left permanently attached to rig. I was tow master on the Ocean Epoch an American rig in the 90"s and were coming across the Australian Bight when the Bridle parted. The Rig had to be what is called ballasted up, which to a seaman is deballasted. This brought the pontoons out of the water and a team had to go down and rig a new Bridle on, this is all big heavy stuff, the weather wasn't too bad and of course had the rigs cranes to assist. As regards towing as mentioned on the site people are going back to the old seamanship books, which in that kind of shipping and for that era is quite correct. Some of the modern deep sea salvage tugs I should imagine nowadays would surprise most of us. The big heavy cable laid rope tail which was always on tug as per BOT, when I was master on the tug side never put on for a long tow as was too heavy mostly for the very few crew one had. So was tugs tow wire direct to Rigs Bridle. Length of tow has already been discussed. Towing the same as most things at sea depended on a persons experience, I admire some of these harbour tugs the way some of them are handled going into a lot of the ports in the uk on regular shipping it was almost easy to say which skipper was on the tug by the way the tug performed. John Sabourn

The Ark Royal was towed to scrap by a Greek tug owned by the TSVARALIS towing outfit (think I got the spelling correct). If any of you have an old REEDS almanac around they always had an advert in it showing a picture of a tug. That was the ex. Hercules, which my father took brand new from Barry to Gibralter in 2950 when he was in salvage for Blands of Gibraltar.
Modern salvage and harbour tugs rarely are propeller driven. They are usually fitted with Voith Schneider or Azimuth stern drives. The towing point is always as close to the c.o.g as possible to avoid girting. On Azimuth stern drives the tow will always pass through the large horseshoe shaped bridle near the stern but fwd of the actual drives to avoid the chance of girting. Older tugs will use a gob rope to create the same effect.
Most tugs are tractor tugs these days in harbour work and can tow in any direction either going aster facing the tow or in the normal ahead direction. The only problem a modern harbour tug really has (unless in the hands of an idiot) is one of swamping. They can heel up to 20 deg. safely when towing, but if anyone has left a door or hatch open, then any seas getting on board go straight into that space cause further listing or even sinking.
The funniest thing I ever saw with tugs (well we all thought it funny) was as a cadet on one of C.P.'s forest product ships. Outward bound to B.C. we would load phosphate in Jacksonville for discharge in New Westminster before starting the backload of timber and timber products. We were always at our max. draught coming down the river in Jacksonville and the harbour master used to issue us with a statement verifying that at our max. draught there would always be a minimum of 3 feet under keel clearance.
WE w were happily proceeding down river, I was on watch on the bridge keeping the bell book, pilot and captain happily in conversation. We had slowed down to pass a dredger working on a straight stretch of the river and shortly after passing it were on full ahead again and starting our turn on an almost 180 deg. bend in the river. Pilot and Captain still chatting away and I noticed that the engine vibration was increasing and that we appeared to be going slower. Thought perhaps is was an illusion due to us swinging round to make the turn. Pilot and captain still happily chatting, whilst giving helm orders to the wheelman. I suddenly realised that we had stopped moving all together and were just altering heading. Timidly approached Captain to tell him I think we are aground. Hells bells, sudden dash to telegraph, full astern but to no avail, hard and fast aground we were. Pilot in a panic calls for harbour tugs but only two available and will take an hour to reach. Tide falling, so senior pilot says no chance, wait till next high water and all tugs will come. About an hour before next high water about every harbour tug plus the coastguard and senior river pilot turn up. Senior river pilot had obviously being enjoying a liquid lunch, short and fat, eventually managed to make the bridge where he promptly collapsed in the corner and took no further part in the proceedings.
The coast guard sounded around us and found that on a 6 hatch ship, its was only at the mid point of no 3 hatch that we were actually afloat.
What had happened was that the dredgers spoil pipe had been wrongly positioned and instead of discharging its spoil well inland clear of the channel, it was actually just putting straight back into the river just upstream of the bend and the result was that a bar had been building stretching out into mid channel and we were well stuck on it.
Next high water with senior pilot passed out in the corner, our pilot positioned all the tugs around us and told them that when he gave the order they were to all "Push Full". Coastguard were sounding and giving us the height of tide and when they told us that it was high water the pilot gives his push full order, we go emergency full astern. One by one on receiving the pilots order the tugs start pushing full with the associated roar of their engines, all bar one just forward of the bridge on the stbd. side, who when the skipper put his controls to full, there was a mighty roar, clouds of smoke came from his funnel followed by sparks and flames quickly followed by his engineer exiting the engine room and diving overboard followed by huge flames from the engine room. The tug was well on fire and slowly drifted away from us with smoke pouring from it, whilst three shocked people stared at it from the bridge. All of a sudden the pilot burst out laughing saying "isn't that the craziest thing you ever seen" and for a few seconds we all thought it hilarious until we suddenly realised that the power of all the tugs plus our own engines had pulled us off the mud bar and we were rapidly going astern speed and heading straight for the dredger that was the cause of the problem. Panic on us and the dredger, emergency full ahead, shouted orders to the tugs to stop pushing and try and get us moving sideways to clear the dredger, coast guard going ape, dredger frantically hauling his dredge and lines to try and get out of our way. Upshot was that we eventually shot past him about 20 feet off still going at a rate of knots with all of the Jacksonville ports tugs either scattering or frantically trying to assist in making us clear the dredger.
Eventually regained control of her and tugs disappeared, coast guard escorted us down the river to sea anchorage where we had to wait for a divers inspection of the bottom before they would allow us to sail. All the way down we were all reliving the incident and all of us just kept bursting out in laughter when we thought of the poor on fire tug. Strange how stress can affect you.
End result of it all was no damage to the bottom but no paint, so after discharging the phosphate it was off the Esquimalt dry dock in near Victoria for a bottom paint that took about a week due to the constant wet weather.
Girlfriend at the time lived in Victoria so a very pleasant stay it was to.
rgds
JA

Thanks Ivan. Warri is still a ****hole and even more dangerous than it ever was. Thankfully never go near the place these days. Main reason the port picked up was our project to be honest. Cannot for the life of me remember how many ships we brought in but it was a lot. To do that we had to upgrade the port and facilities which we did. Too many nightfighters up there for me nowadays! The Itsekiri and the Ijaws are still killing each other over everything and the Port is in Ekpan territoty so it just makes it all the more fun.