Back in 1988, I was the only Union Man on my Tug, this was when the courts forced the companies to put the union men back to work.
Well, we had one of Bouchard’s 30,000 bbl barges on the hip and were taking it to their dock in Brooklyn. I was sitting in the Galley when all of a sudden I went over the table. I looked out the port hole and saw splinters flying by. I got out on deck only to see that the Barge was flat against the dock and the tug was kind of stuck in the end of the pier. We got the lumber off of the dock and got the barge (which was un-manned) tied up then left.
A couple of weeks later we went over there to grab another barge and saw that the center of the dock was gone! If i remember correctly there was a service truck parked there when the dock collapsed.
One thing that came out of this was the Captain (Non-Union) was a lot nicer to me as I kept my mouth shut. Now, had I been question by anyone about the damage, I would not lie, but this never happened so I saw not reason to throw him under the bus.
I do remember him saying right after we hit that the Loran said he was doing Three Knots when we hit.