Curious about tug opportunities in the LA/Long Beach area. Looks like my wife is going to be offered a job in that part of the country. Currently residing in Virginia and working for a local outfit as a mate doing wire boat work on a container barge run. NC toar and 200t license (will be upgrading to 1600t this summer) No z drive experience.
I know Foss (and subsidiaries) Curtin, Centerline, Sause, and BayDelta operate in the area. Anyone else that I’m missing? Does Vane have a presence down there, or are they mostly PNW? What’s the job market like currently?
I realize that my lack of z drive is gonna set me back a bit and happy to go back to decking for a while, but impossible to break in? My company doesn’t really pay travel so I don’t want to be commuting back and forth. Hoping for a 2/2. Thanks!
Centerline and FOSS would both be viable options and operate in LA.
CLL has a few Z drive tugs and a few twin screw push boats with flanking rudders both there and I believe in SF.
FOSS acquired a couple tractor tugs from CLL a few years back in trade for the push boats.
I’ve heard Curtin is a good place to work and pays well, but I know a couple of people that went over there though that I would personally not like to work with again.
The only presence Vane has in LA is one ATB that does light duty terminal runs from LA-SF a couple times per month and I think those guys work 28/28?
I haven’t been back to the area in a few years so much of that may have changed.
Unless something has recently changed, Vane has two ATBs on the West Coast running between LA-SF and Seattle. They also have a bunker operations in LA/LB and Seattle plus 1 or 2 more wire boats in SF. I have a few friends who work on their West Coast boats and can give you info if you need it. Crowley also does ship assist in LA/LB plus their west coast ATBs that run in and out there regularly. There is also Bay Delta that does ship assist In LA/LB and SF. Another company that works in LA/LB is Pac. Tug though i dont know much about them other than seeing them move gravel barges and construction barges around.
It’s been a while since I’ve been around there, a few years back only the one ATB was in the area and hardly ever left the anchorage, with the 4 conventional tugs and their barges up in Puget Sound and nothing in SF. I’m glad to hear they’re doing well. They have very good equipment.
That would be awesome. Thank you! I’m familiar with the 4200s so that would be a smoother transition for me. Does BayDelta have a lot of boats down there? Their equipment always looked top notch (used to live in the Bay Area) but I don’t remember them having a large fleet.
pacific tug boat services - manson construction they have their own tugs - American marine
all in long beach san pedro.
hope you can afford the move, wife’s company paying for relocation?
housing costs will stagger you along with the cost of gasoline et al.
the traffic is terrible. cars wait in line to get on to the highway from city streets
floods and fires to look forward to along with high crime rate and homeless
was there for forty years. its the rat race.
Thanks for the recommendations. Will look into those as well. Yeah, we left the Bay Area for those exact reasons you mentioned, and now we’re moving back. Happy wife…
Curtin seems to be doing a lot and growing. Unless you have affiliation with another company or union, I’d give them a shot. Crowley has a handful of boats in San Diego. Edison Chouest has the navy ship assist contract for SD as well. If you aren’t married to staying on tugs, there are a fair amount of limited tonnage, home most night jobs, in SD and Port Hueneme. Mostly contract work for unmanned vessel support or other military training support. A lot of those jobs are around 80-100k from what I’ve seen. Anyways, good luck. Welcome back to California. Best, most expensive state there is. But fuck LA
I’d definately talk to curtin. Always short handed and growing from what I hear. They have also become one of the higher paying companies if you got the experience.
Vane does have a boat and two barges bunkering in la/lb. At least one boat/barge in sf bay that stays in the bay. Currently one ATB doing a coastal run.
Centerline does bunkering and occasional ship assist. Hurting for people as well.
Bay Delta does have two boats, maybe three in LA/LB.
Manson is an IBU top to bottom company doing dredging and construction and i hear they need people, but the work is feast or famine.
Foss only has one or two boats these days. They have management captains and IBU captains. 50/50 split. Amnav and Crowley probably have the majority of the ship assist work. Amnav absorbed starlight which doesnt exist anymore. Crowley is SIU top to bottom, Amnav and Bay Delta are MMP top to bottom.
The highest paying will be Foss and Bay Delta…and Curtin. Expect to be offshore or working remotely a lot with curtin though. If you want to stay local, talk to centerline or vane. There’s also pacific marine group (pacific tugboat) and american marine, but those are more stepping stone companies. Feel free to PM me if you have more questions as I live in the area.
@ReformedSailor shoot me a PM if you want to talk about Curtin. I’ve been there coming up on 4 years. We do lots of stuff. SpaceX, construction, dredging, some spec tow stuff. It’s kinda up to you if you want to work remote or be local. We have both. We have a need for people.
Metson Marine, Leidos, Oasis, PAI (Range Support at San Clemente), SoCal Ship services runs crew boats from LA/LB to the rigs, etc. Those are the ones I remember off the top of my head. I’ve seen some State Parks jobs pop up in the Oxnard/Ventura area as well. 100ton and smaller doing patrols and servicing the Channel Islands. All kinds of cool and interesting boat work in SoCal