Saturday, January 23, 2010

Smallest tug in Halifax


The miniature Waterworks 1 is not to be scoffed at as a tug. Even though her hull is made of fibreglass, she packs 220 bhp and makes her living towing and handling her owners' construction barges. She works year round, despite having no wheelhouse, and as you can see from the picture taken this morning, she does accumulate snow from time to time.
As a provincially registered vessel (C14941NS) her name is unofficial, and her builders name and date of build are not recorded. By her looks however, I would say that she was built as a herring skiff, used by herring seiners to handle purse nets. She would have been carried on the stern of the fishing boat and launched with one end of the net, which she would then bring round in a circle back to the boat to be drawn in.
In the photo she is tied up to a big concrete barge, which she has towed around the harbour to various construction sites. The most recent was the reconstruction of the piers at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic last summer.

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