Nowadays the engines of an average size tug can provide 2,500 horsepower, a big one 6,000, making them the workhorses of the sea. Engineer Fred Fable (above) in his element on the Turecamo. At right the Cape Romain boils along in a no-nonsense fashion in early morning mist. BILL EGGERT
the Tugs
They are workaday, muscular machines yet there is a purposive beauty about tugs that makes us pause and watch, perhaps wistfully, as they churn by.
Below, tugs are famously good feeders and there's always coffee on the stove.
REID H. GEAR HART
JEFF BLINN