Blessy: Building Bigger and Better

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

With nearly 50 towboats in their ever-growing fleet, the green and white Blessy colours have become a familiar sight pushing petro-barges in the US inland waterways. On Friday, May third, they Christened their latest vessel, the 116x34-foot M/V Charlie Melanson. Designed by Corning Towsent's CT Marine the new towboat is a large step up on the company's already very comfortable and progressive boats.
Built by Verret Shipyard and completely outfitted down to the linen, the accommodations are sumptuous. Crew's quarters on the main deck feature color coordinated duvet covers in two man cabins with shared washroom facilities in which the towels carry the B Blessey monogram. On the second deck, the two captains cabins surpass even this with more pillows on the bed than most five-star hotels. But the vessel's real showpiece is the owner's cabin on the third deck featuring a rich hand-crafted wood with dark and light contrasting grain. The color contrasts has even allowed a built in table top checkers board. Wooden shutters for the windows and an electric fireplace round out the accommodations. The huge wheelhouse features wood grain ceramic tile over a sound dampening complex that is repeated on most of the towboat?s decks. The navigation console departs from the basic inland river style to something more like the U-shape arrangement of a modern ship-docking tug. This allows for huge windows forward for excellent visibility onto and over the barge deck. On the propulsion end, the boat is no less spectacular. A pair of big 1600 hp Cummins KTA50-M mains sit in a roomy engine room and are coupled to massive Reintjes WAF773 gears with 7.0871 reduction turning 86 x 87-in. propellers in nozzles. Verret's Paul Taylor explains that as far as he knows the boat is unique on the rivers in having independent steering that will allow the operator to move the two sets of flanking rudders as well as the steering rudders independently of each other. Normally a bar connects the two sets of rudders so that they move in unison and this mode of operation can be reinstated with the touch of a button. If the boat is backing down and using the flanking rudders, that are set ahead of the props on either side of the shafts, they will automatically center when the gear is shifted to forward. The Siemens steering pump and system was supplied by Custom Hydraulics Components of Gretna Louisiana.
A pair of Cummins-powered Newage Stamford 88 Kw generators provides electrical power for the Charlie Melanson. Tankage includes 50,000 gallons for fuel and 20,000 gallons for water as well as 500 gallons for lube oil.