Portland Tugboat News

We rolled into town on the last train north, arriving Portland, Maine at 2:00 a.m. Half an hour later we were at the dock, hauling our kit - and when Marine News travels light, we're like Hannibal crossing the Alps - over silent tugs resting abreast: Captain Bill, Justine McAllister, Stamford. On the phone a few days before, Capt. Brian Fournier had said something about leaving a light in Stamford's forward port cabin, and there, finally, it shone. But something brighter had caught our eye, and could we believe it? Last time we saw something like it, it was in Aberdeen, Scotland. Now, from Stamford's starboard rail, it loomed and glistened four hundred feet away - rising nearly as high - a pair of deep-sea drilling platforms, afloat waters barely up to their ankles.

Much of the copy on our pages is spent examining the technical and financial sides of our business — the vessels, systems and equipment, as well as the companies and individual that design, build and operate them. The human side ... the people and personalities that make the maritime industry what it is and, personally, has kept me coming back for more for the last decade, often finishes a distant third. Some events of the last few months — the death of Chris Cordeau (29) from Portland Tugboat; the collision of the Lee III and Zim Mexico III at the mouth of the Mississippi, resulting in the sinking of the OSV Lee III and the apparent death of five crew members, including the confirmed deaths of Baldemar Villarreal, Jr.

On Thursday, March 14, Captain Arthur Fournier, founder of the 54-year old Portland Tugboat and Shipdocking Company, rocked the tugboat world when he, along with Captain Brian McAllister, founder of McAllister Towing and Transportation, announced that the two companies would merge together as one. According to an industry source, the announcement, which was made by the heads of both family-owned businesses at the Port of Portland Propeller Club's monthly meeting, defines a new generation in the growing tugboat industry. Also present for the announcement were president Brian McAllister's nephew, A.J., and sons Eric and Buckley, who will continue to serve in their current positions as vice presidents with the company.

When was the last time 15 ocean ships docked almost all at once in New York, and undocked again, and sometimes redocked in-between, all in a week? In the near-400 years since the Dutch first arrived, there have been events even larger. But not many of them lately. Lately, large get-togethers of harbor craft in the most visible parts of the port - upper bay and lower North River - usually surround festive celebrations like the Tug Races and their accompanying games, great entertainment for young and old. But more stirring to watch than tugs at play are tugs at work. Barges go up and down the rivers regularly, but shipdocking, the lively part of tugboating, is concealed from the public eye off the remote corners of Staten Island and the containerports of Newark Bay.

There was a tense moment at the Boston Tug Muster, held this year on the last day of May. At 10 A.M. sharp, the official opening moment of this 19th annual event, there were no tugs at the rallying point, Pier 4, Charlestown. At 10:05, still no tugs. By 10:10, only Innovator, possibly the shortest tug in town, had cruised by. It passed along the pier as if looking for old friends, and finding none, performed its trademark about-face and seemed to be departing. Maybe the gents aboard had got the date wrong? Last year's Muster, after all, was in August. On the pier itself, among Muster officials, a nasty question was starting to form: What if you gave a Muster, and nobody came?

He loved Maritime Reporter so much that he failed a class project for it. Yes, it's true that when he was an eighth grader in Boston, Brian Fournier sadly realized that he received an "F" on a book report that he had written on MR for his English class. Fournier didn't receive his failing grade for his lack of knowledge on the subject or for "lying his way through the assignment" as his teacher thought. He did everything he was supposed to do - he read the material thoroughly sometimes six or seven times over, he had the basis of the industry down pat and he chose something that he was interested in. It was only until he realized that his "book" did not suit the task at hand.