Ocean Towing with Rope Hawser

[Kennebec_Captain]

@Bruce1

@Bruce1

I agree, no catenary for the sea state. its hard for me wrap my head around 1000 ft of soft line, maybe a flounder plate holds it down? I assume the bridal is wire rope shackled to pad eyes on the deck as chain bridals seem from the general consensus are not usual?? or do they just figure eight around the mooring bits? in some of photos of the vessel in repose there appears to be a wire type towing winch on the aft working deck. The tug is less than 100 ft long and the winch seems small, so how much soft line could they get on the drum? If they had 1800 ft of wire rope on the drum you’d would think they would leave at least a layer on the spool so you may be right that it was wire.
this is nothing that a west coast surveyor is familiar with. and I’ve done hundreds of tow set ups and approvals from a YC 110 x 33 coast wise (chain figure eigh around the bitts with a keeper accross the top, bit reinforced under deck)to 700 x 150 from the west coast to the far east. So chain bridals, and wire rope is all I know.

According to the book chain bridles were used. Rope hawser wasn’t on a drum but flaked out on deck. The smaller ships had an H-bitt for securing the rope hawser. The bigger cutters I was on had a considerable bigger towing bitt. Can’t find a photo but it was a combination of a chock and bitts. The line passed from the horizonal mounted bitts on the aft side through the chock-like part.