Tugs...

[j.sabourn]

Although I spent a relative short time as mate and master on vessels engaged in towing various types of tow, it was a subject as a deep sea person one learned as one went along. I have great admiration for professional tug people especially those brought up in tugs be they deepsea or harbour vessels. I for one know little about the sequence of the cert. structure for such, my knowledge is that there is a FG cert. for tugmaster. How they get seatime etc. I wouldn’t know. Anyone who was brought up in the towing world would be interesting to hear about. Cheers JWS.

[John Arton]

John
My father was captain on salvage tube from 1941 through to 1952. He signed up to the RNR in 41 and was put into deep sea rescue guys as the RNR reckoned that coming from a MN career he would know everything about towage!! He didn't but was taught all he knew by Dutch salvage captains who had escaped the Nazis invasion of Holland, along with their guys. After the war he joined Overseas towing as Captain of the Marinara, sister tug to the Turmoil, then later with Blands of Gibraltar before going back to Blue Star line, who he had served his time with from 1929 as cadet up to mate.
Nowadays it's all different.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=tu...obile&ie=UTF-8
Rgds
J.A.

[Brian Seward]

```I was in T124T in 1945 aboard deep sea tugs, andthe first thing we learned was how to splice a 18 inch towing rope with a turnbuckle eye,' Plus 9 inch steel wire rope. A couple of times we broke a rope whilst towing some massive structure (Floating dry Docks) we also towed a Japanese Cruiser (Takao) 65,000 tons we did 5 knots an hour with that one.
It was an interesting job beleive me.

[John Arton]

Brian
My father was on those T124T articles from 1941 through to 1945 serving as mate then master on
HMRT,'s Salvonia, At. olaves, Prudent. Still looking for any information on any salvages he performed. Brought "The Tattie Lads"by Ray Dear which is a fascinating insight into the heroics of those WW2 salvage tugs and their crews.
Rgds
J.A.
Rgds
J.A.

[Brian Seward]

JA I served on the Jaunty and the Assiduous, and the last job we did was towing two LST's with app 350 Dutch nationals escaping the Indonesian revolt. Two trips we did like that ...One from Sourabya and another from Padang. the LST's's were in tandem with a 10 man crew running the logistics.
Those Tugs were strong and could survive massive seas they were app, 1000 Tons. wth a crew of 30. We once lost a Tow in the Bay of Biscay and wow that was rough.
Strangely in all my years at sea I was never seasick
Cheers to all

Brian Seward R 330936

[david smiley]

In my 12 years at sea, I was sea-sick on every ship I sailed on! It took that and a bit of bad weather, to acclimatize me, and then I was 'good to go' again.

[j.sabourn]

I was a newcomer to the North Sea oil industry in 1978 and as regards the old type of anchor handling / supply vessel were not as adaptable as their more compatable vessels of today . The open stern of today had to be fitted with a tow bar which usually due to the extreme weights of the tow wire had to be shored up against collapse of same. A gog eye had to be fitted for the tow wire to enable to control its height above the deck for stability purposes , and to do this the 2 tugger wires and winch’s an 80 ton shackle and the heavy work winch had to be utilised .There were no pop up pins and other aids to towing such as sharks jaws , and all stoppering off of heavy tow. Wires were done manually with shackles and wires. By Pelican hook for those that know what it is. Today life is a lot easier with hydraulic aids , but when such aids break down its back to the old fashioned way. When you see deepsea tugs all fitted out and ready to go, is somewhat different than commerciial anchor handling tug supply vessels , as have to change from mode to mode at short notice. Cargo work is totally different to laying anchors or towing your rig or barge at sea. Cheers JS

PS when I started in the North Sea the average HP was about 4000 . When I left an oil company wouldn’t look at anything under 12000 BHP. Pity really they weren’t so circumspect with their other tonnage. JS

[ed fitztgerald]

Hi, I came ashore with FG certs and went on to do 30+ years on harbour tugs. No certs were required although most masters had HT or FG. as we worked within harbour areas. Before I retired I trained a tug master. His seatime was time on tug and did a college time at Newcaslle. His orals were simular to ours but without cargo/ship construction etc. Time moves on . Masters FG was a bit over qualified but didn"t do us any harm. Regsrds

[j.sabourn]

#8..Thanks Ed, knew there is a F.G. Tugmaster as sailed with at least two. But was not sure how they got the seatime for such. Know one of them got his seatime with Chapman’s but not sure how some others got theirs.
Like the old saying of some of the fishing skippers I sailed with , stick a net on the Queen Mary and I”ll take her to sea.. Cheers JS

[Charles EF Stuart]

I had the privilege to serve as Captain on what I believe was the 5th largest Salvage tug at the time, the Salvor General [ev Abeile Normadie] in 1985 though my position was short lived. The company mothballed the ship. Previously I had done Salvage work for the Brazilian Navy inn Sao Luis and worked on a number of Offshore Tugs including the Spartan Tide, Trojan Tide and Rosemary Tide. My final posting was the Goliath Tide in Turkey in 1988. Most of the Tidewater boats I sailed on were Anchor handling tugs. I was also privileged to be asked by the Brazilian Navy to 'put' their sail training ship into dry dock in Belem in 1982. I think we were bigger than them but got my boys loads of shore leave!

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I had no special qualifications other than FG and in the early day days most Captains had Fisherman Certs.