and gurgling at the stern. Forward of the string of scows, at the end of a dripping towline sagg ing in and out of the sea, the tug chuffs at her work. The exha ust steam and soft coa l smoke issue from he r stack leav ing an ever widenin g shadow over the darkening sea to leeward. Navigation li ghts of tugs and tows, coasting schooners and a Sound steamer, ยงi' looking li ke a sea-going city, move pur~ posefu ll y under the lowering ni ght. In ~ the cabi n a cei ling-hung kerosene lamp <ยง casts a warm Iight over me! lowed toned ,.: pane ling and a brass c lock. Wisps of "'Ulf- steam ri se from a coffee pot on the coa l "':::>0 stove and the ship 's cat lies curled up o n '-----------------------------~-'---'u At the stake boat in the winter of 1934, Red Star tug Norwa lk makes up a tow of coal barges the bunk. John Noble wo uld have considered at Whitestone for deli very east up Long Island Sound. thi s scene a worthy subject. before the hammer was struck , I was The barges or scows were heav il y Seaborne life as a barge captain was answering that bell !" built of pitch pine and oak with iron not a lways so tranquil. With their large steamboat wheel s reinforcing. Loads were carried on deck Ern ie Schmidt, deck hand aboard the (prope lle rs) and mass ive torque, tugs or in a shallow cockp it surrounded by o ld Yoaghi ogheny and Oh io coal yard maneuvered ahead and astern with just wash boards to prevent the load from steam tugs on Con necticut's Housatonic a couple of revolutions. Deck hands shifting or from being washed overboard. Ri ver, gave me a late 1930s newspaper A Scene Worthy of John Noble anticipated the ir next move by the be ll s clipping from the front page of the and jingles rung down to the eng ineer, Red Star wo uld not tow an unman ned Bridgeport Post, 16 February 1939: and one short bl ast on the steam whistle scow. A "caboose"-sty le deck house " Man-Wife Saved as Barge Sinks, Stom1 aft( so- nam ed after th e rectangu Jar Damages T ug, Fireman 's Leg is Injured, alerted the deck crew to their station s. Jn 1961 , aboard the Socony 8, the las t deckhouses on square riggers) housed Harrowing Tale To ld by Crew of Expeworking steam tug on North Caro lina's the barge captain or " bargee," as they rience in Wednesday 's Gale, Man-Wife Cape Fear River, I ex perienced the pri - were sometimes known . These men Picked-up, Captain, Mrs. Carter of Lost mal power of steam. Two bell s rang te nded lin es, pumped their barges, Y &O Barge Suffer From Immersion. " HALF ASTERN and th e Socony 8 trimmed the loads (leveling the load for T he Y &O steam tug M . Mitchell backed into the fairway. On e be ll purposes of measuring the cubic yard- Da vis , towing a scow loaded with I 000 sounded fo r STOP ENGINES and then age) and generall y kept things ship- tons of coa l from Bridgeport toward the anothe r be ll and the jingles for FULL shape. The ir cabins were neatly pai nted, mouth of th e Housatonic River at AHEAD . From unde r her fantail a veri- and if there were flower boxes under the Stratford Point, labored into the blast of table tidal bore of churning, roiling wa- windows or laundry fl ying one could a no"rtheast ga le. The short, steep seas ter erupted- in a moment the Socony 8 over shoa ling water battered the tug and was qui c kly ga inin g headwa y. He r barge, washing over the scow's miniThe shunting of barges and broad-bladed propeller, pumped aro und mal freeboard and flooding into her hold . the making-up of tows TheM. Mit chell Davis's side decks were by the connecting rods of he r compo und s team e ng in e, scooped imm e nse awash. Freeing ports in her low waist occupied twenty-four hours amounts of water driving her ever fas ter ld not hand le the ons laught. Sea wacou a day, three hundred and at each revolution. ter cascaded below at coal bunker deck sixty-five days a year, The Red Star hi gh pressure tugs bunplates and from the lazarette grating. It kered three days of soft coa l and sixteen was a question of maritime triage. watch on and watch off. to e ighteen hours of bo iler feed water. The barge was cast off. T he tug "The fa rthest east we ' d go was Pine ro und ed to , then fe ll off to pi ck up the Orchard, Thimble Islands, towing six reasonabl y surmi se th at there was a bargee Capta in Ca rte r and hi s wife Bea. The barge, no longer under the scows. If it was blow ing easterly or the " Mi ss us" aboard! It must have been a peaceful life steadying influe nce of a tow, wall owed tide was flooding we ' d just make it to B lacksleys. There we ' d water-up for the shunting up and down the So und and the and bucked ; seas was hed over her like trip back to Whitestone towing six scows tidal reaches of the lower Hudson. a ha lf-tide reef. Just after the barge I can imagine an o ld Cape Horner, fi li ed and sank Carter and Bea were loaded with 6000 tons of trap rock ," sa id now retired to inl and waters as a bargee, haul ed from the February water from Dan Ro land . Stearn tugs, bows into the pi ers with seated on a quarter bitt smoking hi s pipe unde r the tu g's lee. Steaming with the a hose running to a fire hydra nt, were at dusk. Coasta l li gh ts in Connecticut ga le, th e M. Mitchell Davis returned to once a common sight on the New York and Long Island wink along the shore. Bridge port and front page publicity waterfront. Permits to " water" were is- The scow slides inexorably forwa rd , for her resc ue role. water whi speri ng along he r slab sides sued by the City Fire Department. For years after the fou ndering of the SEA HISTORY 76, WINTER 1995-96
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