THE BEAT GOES ON:
''So You Want To Be a Deckhand?'' by Joseph M. Stanford
t is a fortunate man who awake ns to the sight of Manhattan's towers gleamin g in a clear summer mornin g's li ght, racing past hi s porthole, framed by blue sky and a bluer river kicked up into surging white foam. The city is magical viewed from the water. Perhaps it 's the constant motion of sma ll boats, ferries, tugs, containerships and all else that ca ll upon these waters for business or leisure, or maybe it 's just the sw irlin g tides-but everywhere the harbor seems ali ve and bursting with an intangi ble energy. Everything seems somehow bigger, more vital and chall engingwhat a place to wake up in! These th oughts and others swam around my mind as I stepped into the whee lhouse of our tug at the beginning of the morning watch on my first full day aboard. I reca ll my express ions of appreciation being met with bl ank stares th at numbl y sa id : "Yo u gettin ' enough air in that cabin there, son?" Several month s later I looked back on that first day with a somew hat different eye. It was then early October and much colder than ex pected. The one pair of jeans and thin sweatshirt I'd brought along did little to protect me from the rain and 35°F air in a 40-knot wind . We were pu shing garbage scows up the North (Hud son) River. For those unfamiliar with thi s particular business, New York City's garbage is loaded by truck into 140-foot long, 35foot wide bright blue scows, to as much as a l 0 foot drau ght. Since this isn't exac tl y a glamorous hi gh-profi t maritime activity, the oldest tugboats are used, most single-screw, usuall y eq uipped with 1800 to 2000 horsepower diesels and dating from as fa r back as the early '40s. The scows come equipped with their own 6-inch circumference dacron lines, one at each end. They are moved in tows of four, with two on either side of the tug, made up in tandem (end-to-end). These are made fast to each other at the head of the tow. The hum an element involved in th is process is comparatively sma ll. But where it ex!sts it is pushed to its limits and becomes a crucia l element of the whole operati on. Hi s mu scle power being rendered use less in so many aspects of the work that needs to be done, the deckhand find s himse lf a somewhat lonely player on a stage fi lled with mute, unforgiv ing stee l objects driven by irresistible forces. Where the frail hum an deckhand butts up aga in st the indu strial mass is in the size of the lines used to make up a tow. Im ag ine a 50- or 60-foot- long line six inches in circumference soaked in rain , seawater and slime that has sp ill ed, seeped or craw led out of the hold of the scow onto its decks. It is back-breakingly heavy and takes a lot of musc le just to move aro und the deck. And, since tugmen do all their own line handling, these python lines must be throw n onto and off bollards, bitts and cleats often from as much as 20 feet away. It sounds impossible, but with the propertechnique, surpri singly small deckhands (even college kids) can do a passing job of it. After severa l weeks at thi s, I felt fa irl y confident in my abilities as I strode out into the rain that October aftern oon. Not ex pect ing the severity of the wind, rain or sudden drop in temperature, I was unprepared as it was. To make matters more interesting, we had to shift several empty scows to different locations. This meant two hours in the rain , which was beginning to freeze on the stee l, making walking along the two-footwide side decks of the scows more treac hero us than usual.
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It was as we approached the l 35 th Street depot th at I paused in my thoughts to look back to my first day aboa rd . Thoroughly soaked in garbage fluids. my hands torn from slivers of broken .glass ca ught in the fibers of the mooring lines, and co lder than I had ever been, the thought that seated itse lf immovabl y at the forefront of my mind was: "Goddam, the city looks beautiful thi s aftern oon! " Whi le I reca ll ed how she had ap pea red a brilliant gl istenin g blue refl ec ti on of sea and sky on that first summer morning, now she was onl y partly visibl e throu gh streaks of dark grey clouds hangin g in torn curtains. Eve n in the protected Hudson River, the scows were bash ing up huge exp lod ing towers of spray. The fac t that I was physically abused on all levels by thi s environment and as di sgustingly dirty as humanl y possible just served to solidify this picture in my mind. All th at was negati ve or unpleasant about the experience faded into the background of thi s scene of a tug at work in her element. The work went on severa l hours more as the day grew darker and co lder. When all was finished, a so lid tow of loaded scows turned so uth toward the bay and the two deckhands on watch clambered back into the hummin g tug, which we lcomed us with hot showers, a warm ga ll ey and a typical tugboat feast. Tugmen do all their ow n cook ing, taking turns in the galley making hearty stews, roasts and pasta dishes. Deckhands genera ll y serve two weeks on duty , one week off and stand watches of six hours on, six off. Of course, one does not savor the joys of tug life without first bearing the burden of being the green hand. Surely all industri es involving dangerous physical labor have their ways of shaming new workers into shape, and the tow ing industry is no excepti on. Of the captain s I met, most were masters of thi s art, not so much by design as simpl y through impatience. Hav ing slogged over the same route for ten or twen ty years, it 's natural to lose patience with the endless stream of incompetent newcomers whose onl y function seems to be to slow down a si mple job. One might argue that twenty years of this might breed a certain tolerance-but one is wiser not to argue at all! I kept that in mind the first time an unsatisfactory performance on my part eli cited comment from the whee lhouse. This came as we were landin g scows at the 52nd Street pier in Brooklyn under the command of a New York Harbor docking master who was less than thril led to be taken from his usual we ll-respected pilot's job to push scows around the Upper Bay. So when I fa il ed to observe the proper procedure in releasing and moori ng one of the scows, ca usin g several hasty , viol ent repet iti ons of the same attempted maneuve r, I expected him to let me have it. But hi s orders and correct ions over the loudspeaker simpl y stopped, as did the engine, and I fo und myself in the center of the tug ' s searc hli ght. An om in ous 20 or 30 seconds of sil ence passed. It was broken by a long pained sigh wh ich echoed up and down the waterfront. I expected li ghts to go on in apartment windows as the locals prepared to enjoy the ensuing fireworks. Aga in a long silence, then: "You just don ' t get it, do you?" I shru gged at the god like li ght that had me framed in a brilli ant white circle. " I mean, you're rea ll y not very good at this, are you?" His voice trailed off in mumbles express in g a sense of futility.
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SEA HISTORY 76, WINTER 1995-96