02/12/2024
This is copied from a story on the CMS Valdez fb site.
I removed the dream sequence , but should you want to read the entire post, go there.
This is as accurate as anything I’ve ever read on making up to a tanker in Valdez, AK. I worked on both those tugs, and i think the folks described are an amalgamation of “cook” or “engineer”, at least im not yet 70,🤣
“Wake up!!!”
A voice yelled out as bright light flashed across his eyelids. The voice shouted again as he was shaken by the shoulder violently,
“We need you outside!!!”
His eyes finally opened. It was dark. The light was gone. The shaking and yelling had stopped. He turned over in the rack, and clicked on the reading light. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, then pulled his boots on.
A thick blanket of snow covered the surface of the seawater. The tug moved slowly along, parting and pushing it aside. He went to the foredeck where two other crew were standing against the cap rails of the tug, smoking ci******es and talking.
In the distance, over the bow of the tug, he made out the lights of a ship—one white over another, and a green light below—moving slowly along in the blackness.
The tug tilted far over to port as the captain made a sharp to starboard to run alongside the ship. Matching the speed of the ship, the captain eased the tug in closer and closer, the water between the tug and ship seeming to move like a swift river.
The tires and chains on the tug’s bulwarks squealed and rattled as they were crunched against the black wall of the ship. Dark figures wearing hardhats leaned over the rails high up above, looking down at the tug.
“Heads up!”
A coil of one inch Amsteel line hit the deck with a loud “smack!” One of the crew on the tug threw his cigarette and went forward to pick up the messenger line, freeing it from the antenna it was wrapped around. With leather garden gloves on his hands he deftly tied a knot around both eyes of the tug’s towing lines.
The ship’s crew quickly pulled the messenger up by hand, then took the line to a powered winch on deck. The messenger became tight, and the giant eyes of the tow lines began to lift off the deck, snow falling off as they went. The engineer engaged the winch and paid out slack as the lines went slowly up the black wall of steel, finally disappearing through the chocks fifty feet above.
In another minute, the captain of the tug flashed the deck lights on and off, the signal to crew on the bow to take up the slack from the lines. The windless hydraulics were engaged again with a loud thud and capstans on both sides began to turn. The deckhand and mate worked the line on each side of the windless, throwing more wraps on the turning drums as the line became tighter. The captain twisted the boat toward the ship to allow additional slack to be taken in.
The windless on the bow stopped, unable to take more slack. The deckhand on the side of the windless closest to the ship immediately placed one hand on the huge orange line, pushing it on the drum to allow it to slip, as the mate on the other side pulled more slack until the windless stopped again. The deckhand wore a red hardhat, brimmed all round, and wore thick glasses with plastic shields on the sides of extra eye protection.
He used to tell the cook,
“It doesn’t matter what you make; it all turns to sh*t.”
Figure eight turns of the huge lines were stacked neatly on cleats behind the windless, making them fast. The tug’s engines were put in neutral as the ship turned toward the Valdez oil terminal, dragging the tugs along for the moment.
Up ahead, yellow lights shined down upon docks where figures in orange suits stood ready to take the ship’s mooring lines.
Voices of the Pilot on the ship and the captains of the two tugboats were heard over galley radio.
“Both boats to a 90,” the Pilot commanded.
“90” and “90”, the captains of the tugs responded.
The tug’s engines wound up, black smoke rising as the boat twisted perpendicular to the ship.
“Stalwart’s to a 90,” the first tug reported.
“Bulwark’s to a 90.”
“Stalwart stretch,” the Pilot ordered.
“Stalwart stretch” the Stalwart repeated.
“Bulwark, push easy.”
“Bulwark push easy.”
“Stalwart’s stretched.”
“Stalwart, back half,” the Pilot ordered.
“Stalwart’s backing half.”
The bow of the tug lifted out of the water and swayed side to side, hanging from the two bow lines going up the ship. The thick orange lines were crushed flat where they turn through the bullnose on the bow of the tug—like a nose ring on a bull—straight up to the ship, vibrating under the incredible tension as the tug pulled the ship’s bow, like lightning rods in wind.
The figure eight wraps of line on the two deck cleats peeled back as more slack was pulled from beneath, turning inside out into a pretty pattern under thousands of tons of strain, moisture inside dripping onto the deck from the rock-hard lines.
The boat je**ed and frightening popping sounds were felt and heard at the galley table. No one was outside. If anything broke, someone could be killed. One of the guys in the galley got up to get a cookie from the jar on the counter.
“Stalwart stop.”
“Stalwart stop.”
“Bulwark stop.”
“Bulwark stop,” the captain repeated.
The cook was in his usual spot, lying on his side across the booth seats against the bulkhead with his head resting on an elbow, talking to the Engineer. He never seemed to cook that much, but somehow there was always food at mealtimes.
“Stalwart push dead slow,” the Pilot ordered.
“Stalwart push dead slow.”
“Bulwark push easy,” to the second tug.
“Bulwark push easy,” the Bulwark’s captain repeated.
The cook bu*******ed with the engineer most of the day and night. He was about sixty years old and did many crossword puzzles and read issues of the New Yorker magazine he had sent to the boat. He ate frozen blueberries that his daughter said were good for him, from a bowl on the table. The bulkhead above where the cook lay was covered in wood, discolored from decades of guys smoking ci******es in the galley (when that was still allowed inside). On the bulkhead was a plaque, with an engraving of a tugboat and words saying,
Towing Vessel “Stalwart”
McDermott Shipyard Incorporated
Morgan City, Louisiana
1976
The Engineer was about seventy. He had a thick mustache, long beard, and high gravelly voice like the narrator at the beginning of a Western film. He looked like a retired Hell’s Angel. One would not guess it, but he was far more interested in snow skiing than tugboat engines, motorcycle riding, or looking like a character in a western film. The engineer often talked about the day that he would finally write his letter to the Company, informing them of his retirement, as follows,
“Thank you for thirty years of heartache and bu****it. You can take this job and shove it.”
The Engineer was telling the cook about his plans to go skiing in Utah and to see his daughter in Washinton when his hitch would end in some more weeks. The cook muttered a response without looking up, reaching for a handful of blueberries from the bowl on the table. He appeared more focused on the crossword puzzle in front of him (“always in pen, not pencil,” he would say).
The second mate and deckhand came down from the wheelhouse and put on hardhats and jackets to go outside. There was a smaller tugboat, forty feet long, tied to the side of the larger one, used to tow the heavy mooring lines from the bow of the ship to the dock pilings hundreds of feet away—a difficult and risky task in high winds and seas, but tonight was calm.
They boarded the line boat, cast off the lines, and headed around the bow of the ship.
“Both boats stop.”
“Stop.”
“Stop.”
The ship was just feet away from the dock now, easing in slowly. The workers in orange suits on the steel docks up above caught messenger lines being thrown by the ship’s crew. The ship’s crew worked winches on deck to take out the slack as the ship closed in and touched down. The Pilot ordered the tugs to push, holding the ship to the dock,
“Both boats push easy.”
“Stalwart push easy.”
“Bulwark push easy.”
The voyage from the sunny shores of the west coast of America was complete. Hose manifolds were already being lowered, to pump aboard another million barrels of oil to go south again. A final call was made to the vessel traffic control center,
“Valdez Traffic, Polar Endeavor.”
“Polar Endeavor, Traffic,”
“All fast at VMT, Berth 4, ETD 0700 tomorrow morning, checking out for the evening.”
“Polar Endeavor, Traffic. Roger Captain, have a good night.”
