"New" tug in town

1. Looking bright and clean Atlantic Hemlock goes out to assist the container ship Thailand Express, October 10.

2. Dressed all over, Hemlock gets away from the dock in St-Malo, France to put on a display. May 17, 2000.

Atlantic Towing Ltd has shuffled some of its tugs around, resulting in a "new to us" tug in Halifax, at least for a while.

One of the regular tugs has been gone since August. At last report Atlantic Fir is towing the barge Atlantic Marlin in the Gulf of St.Lawrence after sailing from Valleyfield, QC last week.

Atlantic Hemlock arrived here October 4 towing the barge Atlantic Swordfish. Atlantic Larch took over the tow, departing October 7 and is now off the west coast of Newfoundland.

Atlantic Hemlock is now on harbour duties in Halifax.

Built in 1996 at Eastisle Shipyard, she is a 4,000 bhp ASD, but has at least one distinction.

She is one of only two tugs of this class to have made two Atlantic crossings under her own power.[The other is the Fjord Saguenay, based at La Baie, QC.]

In early 2000 Hemlock was sent to Europe to promote the East Isle yard's tug program and spent some time there. She may have been to Rotterdam, but in May she attended events surrounding the International Tug & Salvage Conference, and I saw her performing in St-Malo, France.

In July of 2000 she assisted in cable repair work off Broadstairs, UK and then spent time in Southampton. I'm not sure when she returned to Canada, but I assume it was in the fall of 2000.

Since that time the tug has been a bit of a roamer, working on various towing jobs for Atlantic Towing, from the Saint John, NB base. In 2001 she was contracted to tow various submarines and warships in the filming of the Harrison Ford moved K-19:the Widowmaker in Halifax Harbour.

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