Everyday Urbanism will out. "Between 12 and 2 pm next Saturday the USCG will perform a vertical delivery on the salt dock" across the street from us here at Chelsea-by-the-Sea, emails Dan Adams re the highlight of Eastern Salt's Chelsea Maritime Festival 10 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, August 2:
A helicopter hovers high over the ground, and USCG personnel repel down cables onto the dock … It should be a really spectacular demonstration and vision.
"The newest and most powerful tractor tug in Boston is Leo," according to Professional Mariner. Leo will be dockside across the street for tours August 2 for Eastern Salt's Chelsea Maritime Festival.
We're hoping for the totally awesome repro of Darwin's Beagle with state-of-the-art innards for sometime next year, but while we're waiting, the "newest and most powerful tractor tug in Boston," Leo will be lying alongside Eastern Salt next weekend for interested boarding parties:
Boston’s traditional tugboat company, Boston Towing & Transportation, has had to make room this year for an expanded, refinanced and revitalized competitor — Constellation Martitime, acquired by Foss Maritime of Seattle in 2006 …
Out at the end of Pier 1 in Charlestown, near the autoport at the end of Terminal Street, just north of the Charlestown Navy Yard, it’s beginning to look like a Foss Maritime satellite yard with half a dozen green and white tugs tied up around a couple of work barges, one of which houses a maintenance facility and offices. What’s left of the old Constellation fleet — tied up around the corner — is totally eclipsed by the newer and more powerful green and white Foss tugs. While a couple of new Foss tractor-style tugs get the headlines these days, a handful of very capable twin-screw tugs are also there to do the heavy hauling.
Most of them are being renamed after stellar constellations, except the newest and most powerful — the 5,080-hp z-drive tractor, Leo, which arrived in Boston in mid-March already bearing a constellation name. Leo and another Foss tractor, the 3,000-hp cycloidal-drive tug America (just renamed Orion), were both towed around from the West Coast as dead ships, arriving with a disfiguring coating of ice at the tail end of winter.
Boston Towing, with 13 tugs including two LNG-capable, z-drive tractor tugs, still has the majority of ship-assist work in this mid-sized port — estimated to be at least 75 percent market share — but Constellation, backed by an aggressive parent company eager to build itself as a national brand, is sure to be coming on strong in the near future.
We're totally into the USCG these days, our nephew's beloved's being a member of the crew of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Tahoma of cocaine-busting fame. Our exhibition at Pearl Street Gallery just up the street from Eastern Salt will be open for tours during the festival, and for friends of sisu there'll be food and drink at Chelsea-by-the-Sea following the formal event. If you're in the area —or if not, feel free to go out of your way — please stop by.
Well, I've been out of things haven't I... I'll have to run this by my husband and see if he wants to dash out and see the doings otherwise I may head over myself. Sounds like a blast. *grin*
Posted by: Teresa | July 29, 2008 at 12:52 AM