So not knowing any details of what the tug was doing except coming across the bay to do undocking the speed limit is 10 kts so I think that the theory is the tug never stopped from crossing the bay.
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That is an expensive “whoopsie”.
Time to give Crowley the contract back?
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Okay, that picture looks like a bell ringing hit. What in the hell type metal & weld are those? Looks like sheet with a bowling ball in the middle.
The pride of the now defunct Avondale Shipbuilding 
Those guys should be proud of their work for sure.
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There have definitely been struggles with the new guys, but Crowley had been there forever and had their share of issues.
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Anyone who knew anything on the Alaska waterfront could not believe that they took the Valdez contract away from Crowley and gave it to , of all companies, Chouest.
Chouest’s only major accomplishment in Alaska up to that point had been “KULLUK on the Rocks” which killed offshore drilling in Arctic Alaska forever.
Crowley, like any company, had its problems, but overall they did a good job for many years. They had the experience.
Chouest made a point of refusing to hire any of Crowley’s experienced Alaska mariners.
Shit happens. We all know that. But a tug running 10kts across the harbor and straight into the quarter of a docked tanker is quite a bit more than the normal “hard landing”. I’m very curious as to the NTSB investigation on this one.
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How many of Crowley’s people applied? I would say it was not so much of them refusing to hire Crowley’s people as it was Crowley is union and Chouest is not.
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A lot of Crowley employees wanted the Chouest Valdez jobs. I know some of them.
A lot of the ex-Crowley Valdez guys faced long periods of unemployment or underemployment.
I doubt there is much difference in pay between Crowley or Chouest in Valdez.
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No sh*t…I can’t imagine a 10 kt impact.
@ombugge & @New3M are both right. Every ship is different. Yes you would normally not want to have ballast water in stern tanks. Most of your house weight is aft so if your using stern ballast its either because of bad ship designs or some funky loads. Almost always forepeak ballast is the go too. Many product tankers in GOM will only use forepeak ballast to trim themselves I know for a fact that some ships its a pain to load the stern ballast tanks and rarely do. These vessels are obviously a lot larger. In terms “charterer” caring about the ship design. The Polar Tankers are owned by Conocophillips so they are company owned and managed. Some would say these ships are excessively redundant. They have two huge engine rooms, separate shafts, props etc. Conoco basically built these things to prevent another Exxon Valdez.
Crowley fleet was aged but had like 200million saved up to built new vessels but untimely couldn’t compete with ECO because they came in and low balled the contract with better equipment. ECO could built their ships at cost while Crowley couldn’t. (ECO owns their own shipyard).
Crowley also has somewhat of a reputation of running their Alaska equipment into the ground. When your running old equipment and not replacing it or making repairs people notice. Now they are using the capital they had saved up to build some new ATBs up there.
… Crowley got complacent they were dominant in Alaska and if you low ball some gulf towing…well sure enough anti-union ECO which happens to be the best company at low balling competition came after Crowley in Alaska.
I’ve heard that Crowley actually underbid Chouest.
Chouest was chosen because Valdez wanted new boats and Chouest promised to build them. Chouest had to build. They didn’t have any Gulf of Alaska capable escort tugs.
Valdez should have given Crowley more money to build some new boats. Crowley had years of experience doing that specific job.
Crowley has Jensen, their own very capable naval architecture firm. If Crowley thought it needed a shipyard, it certainly could have bought one.
Regardless of what the bidding was it seems to of come down to new equipment vs experienced mariners and it is a shame that the latter won out. I feel that regardless of who won the contract those mariners with years of experience should have been hired and retained.
Chouest built 4 tugs just for the Chenier LNG plant in Sabine Pass, They do nothing else But the LNG ships at Chenier, They actually sat for 2 years Waiting for the first ship, Must have been a Sweet Job.
Charterers may not care about the design but they certainly care about taking up cargo capacity. Carrying ballast in stead of cargo is not a good sales point.
If you have to carry ballast in the aft peak for trim on a fully loaded tanker something is wrong. (Either with the design or with the loading)
Tankers usually have the E/R aft. Today most also have superstructure aft only. Even on tankers with a midships superstructure, majority of weight is aft.,
I have not heard of anybody carrying ballast on fully loaded tankers. (??)
Usually the cargo is distributed to take care of trim and stress.
PS> Parcel tanker MAY have to use ballast due to part load or many different types of cargo.
But then I have only been on two tankers, one as Deckboy and one as Captain. (Both of the midships type)
Should’ve started with that info…
Even with the superstructure aft, 30k lightship weight doesn’t offset 140k of cargo forward of the house. The ballast aft typically doesn’t effect the carrying capacity of the ship as much as the API and temp. You could have aft ballast filled and be at 98% full and not be at the marks with a lighter cargo. With a heavier cargo you could have much less ballast and be at the marks well before 98% full. In the TAPS trade, entering Puget Sound there is a tonnage limitation you are right, less ballast means more cargo.
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Thanks for that - I didn’t want to get into with him about how the house and the engine doesn’t weigh shit compared to a load of cargo…
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Puget Sound limit is 125K tons DWT or slightly under 1 million barrels. The polar endeavor has tankage for over 1 million barrels and a DWT of close to 142K tons if loaded to max.
The ships were designed for the TAPS trade so give the designers some credit.