Tugboat Tales: Sept. 26, 2023

Tugboat Tales, September 26th, 2023

Back in the 1980s, I worked as a seaplane mechanic at Kenmore Air Harbor. KAH is located at the north end of Lake Washington NE of Seattle. KAH was and remains the largest privately owned seaplane base in the world. I think they own about 30 seaplanes now and fly all around the Puget Sound area.

I worked the swing shift, 4:30 PM to 1 AM five nights a week. It was Mac, John, and I maintaining the KAH seaplanes in the evening after they were done flying for the day (seaplanes don’t fly at night.)

Across the Sammamish Slough (now it’s called a river) was the large flat peninsula where Northland kept its cargo containers stacked 5 high awaiting the barge and tugboat that would tow them to Alaska.

At about Midnight Mac, John, and I would watch the tugboat tow the loaded barge away down lake to the ship canal. Then the tug would take the barge through the Chittenden Locks in Ballard and out into Puget Sound then north to Alaska.

We were amazed at how high they stacked those containers, and other gear, on the barge. The stack was 6 stories high. Once we watched a fire truck loaded on the barge headed north.

The barges went out in the middle of the night to avoid boat traffic. The locks are open 24/7 and run by the Corp of Engineers. The locks were designed and built back in 1917. The barges are designed to be just small enough to fit through the locks.

……

In the winter I was put back on the day shift and there wasn’t much seaplane traffic in winter for the base aircraft. There I met Ron. He was about 3 years older than me and an affable guy with a sardonic sense of humor.

Ron was about 5’10” with brown hair and eyes. He was a good storyteller and had been around.

Ron told me that if the boss shows up and you have nothing to do in the hangar, grab a bucket and clean it.

One day at break time, Ron talked about his time on one of the US Navy’s Ocean Fleet Tugboats. Ron was taught by the Navy how to use a sextant and navigate at night by the stars. The tugboat he was on towed barges from Seattle to Vietnam for the war effort. Ron enjoyed those voyages. He liked navigating by the sextant and the stars.

After the war, Ron went to work on the tugboats at Northland Industries across the water from KAH. He’d been on those tugboats we saw going by late at night.

Ron told me that the tugs only stayed at the dock on Lake Washington just long enough to fuel up, food up, and load up. The crew had about an hour or two off duty. Their girlfriends and wives would show up in the parking lot and soon the cars were bouncing around.

One time, the tugboat and barge had just cleared the Locks in Ballard and were headed up the sound just west of Edmonds. It was a sunny morning. The sun had just come up.

Ron was on deck when he saw the huge NW Indian chef come on deck stark naked. The chef had long hair, tattoos, and weighed about 300 pounds.

He climbed up on the railing and said, “Goo-goo=gooooood-bye!”

Ron ran over to the chef and pulled him back onto the deck. Ron called for help and two other crewmen helped Ron wrestle and carry the Indian back into his bunk.

Ron figured the chef was suffering from delirium tremors (alcohol poisoning). The chef slept all day.

After that, the chef gave Ron whatever he wanted from the galley.

TJM