It’ll really depend of the company and the trade. What size unit, how its manned, her trade, how she rides/handles, etc. When I worked on them, some in the company never left NY or DE. Makes for a busy hitch doing lighterings and bouncing off docks every day with 18-24 hr turnarounds on average, half that for lighterings.
The ride was bouncy in wx. Maybe tugchief’s boat was better, but ours pitched a lot in any decent sea no matter the direction. Twenty foot seas would have broken a lot of stuff on our barge and been one heck of a ride on the tug, safe, but probably not much sleeping going on. Head on into 10-15’ would make us have to almost hove to because of pounding, not fun.
I enjoyed it most when we were moving around with a good variety of offshore work and harbor work. But it really depended on what the market was at the time, despite being on contract; we’d do long 8-10 day trips down the coast some hitches, or never leave the harbor on others. Some units are on rails, especially in the Gulf, we weren’t and could go anywhere any time… or nowhere for a long time.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but some of the old K-Sea ATBs are now part of Kirby Offshore, so there’s a fair chance you might not necessarily be doing strictly Gulf runs, yes?