Are there any left? I know a lot of modern rig tows are done on synthetic bridles and pigtail connected to a nylon stretcher for shock absorption then the wire rope tow wire. That way they don’t need chain surge gear.
There are still a lot of hawser boats around, but they rarely put the hawser out - mostly harbor boats. There are still a few old boats that routinely tow on the hawser.
In the Gulf (and on some of the East Coast), tugs typically use wire bridles, a wire pendant and a doubled up braided nylon “snatch line” or “shock hawser” that’s less than the length of the deck between the winch and the stern. The snatch line is shackled in between the tow wire and the wire pendant.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen a rig tow, that I don’t remember how the gear was rigged up; it’s probably changed anyway.
I worked 10" to 12"nylon hawsers very early in my career in the 70’s as an AB, OS,and Mate and flaked many a hawser… Although nostalgic, I don’t miss that kinda work. It appears Tugsailor has been there and knows his shit to advise run… don’t walk from that type of operation…
I got to cut my teeth in the past couple of years for an outfit running some old conventionals on the Great Lakes. We would haul inland river barges across Lake Michigan to the steel mills in Indiana. We generally planned these south end moves on days when the lake was tame and just used the push gear. But on days when the lake got rough we occasionally would bust out the hawser and bridles.
Most of the boats had a tow machine, one was powered by its own detroit 71 motor, one was hydraulic, and one of the old single screw boats had a beautiful air powered tow machine(that wasn’t very powerful).
But our regular harbor boat(built to the general dimensions of an old army ST tug) had no towing machine. It had no capstan either(it used to have one, but was apparently stolen somehow).
Generally if we knew we would have to put barges on the hawser, we would take the aforementioned single screw tug with the air powered tow machine; but it was chartered out to a construction company for a good part of my tenure there. On the upper deck we had a hawser for ship tows, a hawser for barges (with a bridle at the end), and bridle/barge couplers for towing 2 or 3 barges).
The first time we had to tow I was still fairly green and they put 3 deckhands on with the most experienced captain. We had 2 loads and ran light boat on the return trip. Easy enough.
The second time we had no lead time and it was just me another deckhand and our regular rookie captain. This time we had just a single empty raked barge. Pulling the towline in was much more involved this time around. The wind was blowing the barge making it difficult to pull slack, plus we were on a single screw boat, so the captain had to keep the boat oriented right so that the hawser wouldn’t pull tight and sweep us off the deck. We regularly had to clear the stern deck so that he could get the boat reoriented.
This was my first time towing astern. I was relieved at how much easier it was with a towing machine once the other boat came back from charter.
I have just moved on to the east coast now as work is slow on the lakes. This outfit’s boats don’t have tow machines either…but atleast they have capstans.
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the only vessels i was ever exposed to were Navajo Class navy tugs with tractions winches
Nice old pictures from back in the day.
I always slept better when i sent a barge out to sea with 2+ inch diameter tow wire.
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When seismic surveying the guard/ supply vessel was generally equipped with a hawser to attempt to maintain forward way in case of a machinery breakdown of the seismic vessel. In practice it didn’t fill me with confidence.
In a towing operation in the Indian Ocean where the Texaco Brisbane was towing the Texaco Plymouth and they had parted the Plymouth’s insurance wire and were towing on the Brisbane’s wire. I was serving in the Texaco Southampton and we were directed to assist. All three ships were fully loaded with a displacement of approximately 83,000 tones. We first had to move the 75mm insurance wire from the forecastle to aft, a labour intensive process.
I flaked out the wire using the entire starboard side of the poop in the manner that Captain Kennebec illustrated, each flake stopped to a strong back . I also set up a chain check stopper utilising a deck fitting and a length of chain fitted with a handy Billy to further control the speed of the wire. A fire hose was used to keep the stopper cool.
Two mooring hawsers of polypropylene were streamed astern until the Texaco Brisbane recovered the end and the transfer started . The end of the wire was secured to two further mooring ropes to control the wire until the transfer was complete. We then recovered the 4 mooring ropes. The 900 mile tow was successful and the Plymouth was delivered to shipyard.
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