Pups in the harbour

 His Majesty's Canadian Dockyard in Halifax operates six tugs through the King's Harbour Master. All are crewed by civilians and are not commissioned Royal Canadian Navy naval vessels, but are designated as Canadian Naval Auxiliary Vessels. Three of the tugs are the Glen class of 1750 bhp Voith-Schneider tractor tugs and three are Ville class "Pup" tugs. A new tug program is underway to build replacements for the 1977 era Glens but the even older Villes remain in service with no sign of replacements any time soon.

Those small pups can be seen bustling about the harbour conducting many duties including ship berthing, fender handling, securing to mooring buoys and security rounds. I have covered these tugs here before and in a previous post I called them Gofers of the Dockyard.

CNAV Granville is typical of the type. The mast can be struck for working close alongside ships.

 The three Villes in Halifax were built by Georgetown Shipyard in Prince Edward Island in 1975, and were named Listerville YTS 592, Merrickville YTS 593 and Marysville YTS 594. The last of the trio was later renamed Parksville then in 2003 renamed Granville. The pennant designations were also changed from YTS (Yard Tug Small) to YTL (Yard Tug Little).

The tugs are powered by a 365 bhp Caterpillar engine driving a single screw in a steerable nozzle, giving a bollard pull of 7.5 tons. They seldom stray very far from Halifax, but I did notice the Merrickville in Sambro today. Yesterday the Granville was returning from the static Sound Range trot buoys in Macnab's Cove and was heading into a stiff northerly breeze, which it weathered with its usual dignity.

A familiar task for the Pups is moving inflatable (Yokohama) fenders to berths outside the Dockyard for visiting naval vessels. They are secured in such a way as to still provide visibility.

As befitting their miniature size the tugs deploy tiny Yokohamas as hull fenders of their own.

.

Calusa Coast

 The United States flag tug Calusa Coast arrived today, October 15, from Boston and tied up at Pier 25. It arrived light tug.

Built in 1978 by Bollinger Machine Shop in Lockport LA, it carried the name Marc G until 1992 then became Katrina G. Dann Marine Towing Co of Chesapeake City, Maryland added the tug to their fleet and renamed it Calusa Coast in 2003. It has two GM-EMD 12-645-E2 main engines of 3400 bhp total driving two screws. The upper wheelhouse gives a 48 foot height of eye versus the 21 foot height of eye for the lower wheelhouse. It also carries a towing winch with 2,000 feet of 2 inch wire.

The tug shifted from dry cargo barge towing on the eastern seaboard to working on the Great Lakes from 2016 to 2020 with the barge Delaware delivering asphalt from Marathon, Detroit to sundry Lakes ports such as Cleveland and Buffalo. It left the Lakes in November 2020 and since then it has been reported in New York with barges carrying bulk sugar, but has likely been doing other work as well.

I am alwauys impressed by how well maintained these older US tugs appear. This one looks frech "from the showroom".

The tug is wearing its "lock ladders" - very long ladders on each side, standing upward, and which can be angled outward to allow agile crew members to land at the lock wall to assist passage if needed. They can also be used to access the deck of a light barge when the tugs goes "in the notch" for pushing.

 No destination has been given yet.

.