Wayne, do they even use tugs for that anymore? Or is it all done by bow thrusters?

On Wed, 23 Sep 2015 10:38:36 -0700 (PDT), Tim
wrote:

Wayne, do they even use tugs for that anymore? Or is it all done by bow thrusters?

===

The trend seems to be that ferrys and cruise ships are using
thrusters, both bow and stern. They do a lot of docking and undocking
so avoiding tug boats saves a lot of money. Cargo ships and large
military vessels are still using tugs for the most part.

Yes expensive. When I had my old Chris craft on Carlyle lake the dock club had a cookout going on and I got acquainted with a guy that worked for a tow company out of St. Louis. They had a small fleet of barge engines. That ran the ICW. He said those boats averaged about $18-2300. An hr depending...

And that was in about 1985.

On Wed, 23 Sep 2015 10:38:36 -0700 (PDT), Tim
wrote:

Wayne, do they even use tugs for that anymore? Or is it all done by bow thrusters?

The tug boat union ;-)

I suppose in some cases wind and tide will be too much for thrusters
and no captain wants that liability. It is the same reason they take
on pilots.

wrote:
On Wed, 23 Sep 2015 10:38:36 -0700 (PDT), Tim
wrote:

Wayne, do they even use tugs for that anymore? Or is it all done by bow thrusters?

The tug boat union ;-)

I suppose in some cases wind and tide will be too much for thrusters
and no captain wants that liability. It is the same reason they take
on pilots.

Acquaintance runs a tractor tug in SF Bay. He makes $450k a year. So fees
have to cover crew and a multimillion dollar tug, most ships are at least
escorted by tug when going under any of the bridges and a couple other
places. Both because of danger of loss of steering and power and fast
currents.

On Wed, 23 Sep 2015 15:32:34 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 23 Sep 2015 10:38:36 -0700 (PDT), Tim
wrote:

Wayne, do they even use tugs for that anymore? Or is it all done by bow thrusters?

The tug boat union ;-)

I suppose in some cases wind and tide will be too much for thrusters
and no captain wants that liability. It is the same reason they take
on pilots.

===

Use of a pilot is not entirely up to the captain. Here are the rules
for Florida:

http://floridapilots.com/wordpress/w...20Document.pdf