By Chris Kaltenbach, The Baltimore Sun
Updated at 5:55 pm
A 100-foot tugboat sank off of Pier 3 in Locust Point on Saturday night, a Coast Guard spokesman confirmed Sunday.
The tugboat Kaleen McAllister sank before midnight Saturday, Petty Officer David Marin, a Coast Guard spokesman operating out of Baltimore’s Curtis Bay yards, said. Everyone had left the ship by the time it sank, he said.
The Coast Guard “got a report that they were taking on water” sometime before midnight, Marin said, referring to the tugboat. Efforts to pump water out of the tug faster than it was coming in failed, he said, and it sank.
There was a report of a “small leak” of diesel fuel and lube oil, Marin said. The site has been “boomed off” to prevent any further spread of the leak, he said.
The Coast Guard is investigating the incident, he said.
Officials from McAllister Towing of Baltimore Inc., owners of the tug, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Typical pilot bs… If it ain’t new, it ain’t no good. Seeing as she was a YTB conversion ( single z drive), I’m sure the insurance underwriter required a hull survey before they would cover the hull. These boats are built heavy, 1" on the bottom, 3/4" on the sides and doubled up in all critical areas. With that said, steel ain’t no match for 3/4 speed and a fixed object. Something will give.
[QUOTE=Clear Solution;108287]Seeing as she was a YTB conversion ( single z drive), I’m sure the insurance underwriter required a hull survey before they would cover the hull. These boats are built heavy, 1" on the bottom, 3/4" on the sides and doubled up in all critical areas. With that said, steel ain’t no match for 3/4 speed and a fixed object. Something will give.[/QUOTE]
It’s like I said in the “Save the SSUS” thread, they built some real nice top of the line, government funded, real-real, G.I. Joe, gung-ho merchandise back in the day. These things were rough, tough, and ready to roll. The short-coming of old hulls are their fastenings, i.e. rivets, but the plating is some A#1 stuff, can’t beat it. I could not possible say whether she was welded or riveted because this is not a vessel that I am familiar with, but even if she was riveted no underwriter would have looked the other way at a fatigued hull with all the work she just had done to her a couple years ago (a total repowering with a new EMD and 2 new John Deere gen-sets). Her hull must have been up-to-snuff, if not in better shape than some new-builds.
That boat had a ton of work done on it a year or so ago if im correct, re-powered and all that stuff. Those YTBs may be old but they still have life in them. The navy built them to last.