People walk in one door and out the other…
A wise tugboat-philosopher I used to work with once said: “This industry is really good at recycling it’s own shit.”
That was many moons ago, and the industry has only gotten better at it. So, as a result, the industry has exactly the kind of personnel it deserves.
[QUOTE=captjacksparrow;186979]A wise tugboat-philosopher I used to work with once said: “This industry is really good at recycling it’s own shit.”
That was many moons ago, and the industry has only gotten better at it. So, as a result, the industry has exactly the kind of personnel it deserves.[/QUOTE]
I like to make the comparison to what the Liverpool packet ships did to the American Merchant Marine in the days of sail, to what so many companies have done to themselves over the last few deckhands. Its widely held that the conditions aboard the Liverpool packets, the brutality of the officers, the low pay, and schedule above all contributed to an enormous decline in the quality of american sailors at the time. Good people left the industry to do the equivalent of flip burgers at mcdonalds because hell anything was better than those packet ships. This led to the rise of a breed of sailor deemed the liverpool packet rat. Lowest of the low, total scum, but you could beat that into the rigging in a full gale. They might stab you on the wharf at the end of the voyage, or during, but they would do just about anything a dollar and the billy club could persuade them to do. They just didn’t do it terribly well.
Fast forward 100 years. Workboat companies in general, not all, but in general have been treating people like dog shit for decades. Some of the companies mentioned in this thread are prime examples. Deplorable conditions, low pay, and I don’t care that your wife has cancer we don’t have a relief for you. Especially among the deck crews, some of whom eventually become wheelman you are seeing the same backslide of the quality. No one cares about doing a good job, because they don’t have to. Good enough is good enough.
Mcallisters whole business plan of don’t build your own barges, and run the cheapest equipment you can has come to fruition. Everyone else has spent a lot of money the last ten years so they could get away from having outside boats move their barges in most cases. As well having modern, or modernized reliable equipment that charters and their vetters won’t reject at first sight.
Kirby as well I think is finding that K-Sea, while cheaper than starting an offshore fleet from scratch, is considerably more expensive of a purchase than initially planned.
I remember when Kirby cried to their shareholders that k-sea was costing them way too much in shipyard work, way more than they thought. No shit, you bought nothing but 40 year old Frankenstein conversion jobs that had already been beat to death often in the oil field. You could say you bought it for market share, but then why complain and say you had no idea? Why donjon is buying some of it is beyond me.
At least reinauer bought a lot of ex oil company boats that were maintained with a somewhat open checkbook. Why the Dace got repowered for million$$$ will always elude me though. I assume. They will run the Austin, Joanne, Lucy etc till the wheels fall off buying them time to slowly build new boats.
Macs business model has never made sense to me. Had they built 2-3 oil barges and worked some funky charter deal with reinauer Bouchard etc things would be different. And Genesis should be building new pin boats for those fairly new barges, or at least pin the bollinger boats like Moran did the scott, Barney etc.
[QUOTE=BargeMonkey;186981]My father / I have a decent sized business and adding 20 more people here shortly. Kept everyone who wanted to work busy thru the winter when things where real slow, we take care of our core guys, fuck the rest of them, catering to help gets me nowhere but frustrated. Ive given up the pro union speech or caring if guys are stupid enough to work for 1/2 wages and 2/1, if your dumb enough to go along with it and not improve your situation that’s your problem. Hate to sound cynical but I see it from both sides of the coin and as much as I like to bitch / whine I’m just a # on a payroll sheet while I’m still here.
I see alot of stuff for sale on Marcon or Sun Machinery, mostly tired or needing major repair. Reinauer tried to buy the Christine, Marjorie and 2 other boats right before the slowdown in 08-09, McAllister got greedy and that’s why only the Bridget showed up, they had all the plans from the Morgan and it only made sense. Other than the 20’s and the 42 what do they need the extra tugs for ? I remember before all the shit got loaded onboard to go to Africa the tug crews thinking “everything is fine” and watched as most of them didn’t see the rug getting pulled out, I was still a tankerman on a single hull so we knew the end was coming, exactly why I pushed so hard to get a license.
“BMLP” is managed by N/T, boats are still owned by Tilcon. I think Whitmore owns the hoppers and some of the new scows he has leased to them but Tilcon still runs the show. The best deckhands and boat handlers in the harbor for the most part over there, good group of guys, it’s a shame just 3 boats left now. I think the #10 is still sitting in the Roundout ???[/QUOTE] After the retrofits of the Craig and Timothy in 2009 RTC had an interest in two Mac boats (not the ones you mentioned) to be retrofitted with pin systems. However deciding to pull back not because as you wrote Mac got greedy, its was because thats when the major oil companies first started dialog that the age of the tugboat was being discussed internally and there was a possibility of phase-out. The Dace was repowered to buy time to build new tugs to start replacing the older tugs. The Jason was tied up for lack of assist work in Albany but will probably be coming back out in the fall. The Stephen Scott was tied up because there was no longer a need for her, in addition to age the majors don’t want tow boats any longer on the coast (just ATB’s) no crew members were laid off in the tie-ups. There may be an announcement soon on new tugs to be built to replace the older tugs.
the ex-teco boats? I remember one of them was moving the 120 or 502 around for a while, that was back around the time they dumped a ton of money into the Christine if I recall correctly.
No RTC wanted the Christine. They used the Colleen & Michaela for RTC work, until the 90 got to the end of its lifespan & sold & converted to a bludworth on the Great Lakes. The Colleen moved the 502 while the Christine was in the yard & so did the Marjorie & Bruce as well.
[QUOTE=Tugted;187031]No RTC wanted the Christine. They used the Colleen & Michaela for RTC work, until the 90 got to the end of its lifespan & sold & converted to a bludworth on the Great Lakes. The Colleen moved the 502 while the Christine was in the yard & so did the Marjorie & Bruce as well.[/QUOTE] RTC only had interest in Christine for charter, the two other boats that RTC had interest in besides the Bridgett was the Rowan and the Iona.
Thanks for all of the replies. Much appreciated.
I think we can all thank congress/senate more than the bosses. They squashed the export ban fucking a lot of us, with more to come. All these new ships and barge rigs working the gulf are going to feel the pain too. Luckily they’re too big with dense crews to work up here. Next up is probably Irving building a giant refinery addition and flag of convenienceing it both ways up and down our throats. Those spineless fucks in DC should have at least required us flag bottoms for export within the Western Hemisphere.
At the end of the day reinauer and Bouchard have good fleets. Kirby perplexes me, besides some of the penn equipment it is mostly shit with no big push to standardize and replace things. How much did they just dump into that Viking hermaphrodite? Reinauer sticking with MTU and Bouchard EMD makes good business sense on economies of scale engineering wise. I don’t get why Genesis and vane get away with wire boats(AND BUILDING MORE!) yet we see Bouchard and reinauer saying the customers want no part of them anymore.
A little birdy says Friday might be interesting around here.
you can’t just post something like that and leave
I know! Cliffhanger up in here! What’s the word Bayrunner?
Someone must be tieing up a raft of boats.
Stayed tuned.
Yup. The good ol’ #10 is parked at the lower end at Feeney’s. Looks like the long-term lot, too.
It’s rough shape. Engines and gears are still good. Would take 2mil bucks to bring that boat back to life, needs alot of steel.
So it’s Friday, should I be looking for a new job?
Well that was a let down.
Nothing to see here, move along now.
The spiral around the bowl continues.