In the world of tugs and towage there are all manner of interesting stories to hear and interesting facts and details to learn. So, we thought we'd present to you here some articles about tug boats and towing that we hope you find interesting.

A Day Tugging on Southampton Water

After my trip out on the tugs of the River Tyne earlier this year (read about it here), I was keen to get a trip out on my local waterway, Southampton Water. I've lived by Southampton Water for about 34 years and have seen all manner of ships come and go but had never been out on a tug in the docks. Luckily, the good people at Svitzer Marine were more than happy again to help me out.

I'd been saving this trip up for a while in the hope that I could pick a sunny day that would help me get some good quality photographs. However, as mid-August approached, and with the British weather just as unpredictable as ever, I decided to go for it. I selected Friday 14th August as the day for my trip as I had the day off work anyway and the shipping schedules looked pretty busy.

To my surprise, the weather looked ideal at 7am as I walked down Hythe Pier to get the ferry across into Southampton. The sky was clear and there didn't appear to be much wind at all. As I got to the end of the pier, I was even treated to the sight of Adsteam Surrey and Svitzer Sarah bringing a vehicle carrier into the docks... read more...

A Day Tugging on the Tyne

For any tug enthusiast, there's nothing better than being down by the water watching the tugs at work taking vessels in and out of the port. Apart, that is, from actually being on one of the tugs seeing first hand how they go about handling a towing operation. So, when the good folks at Svitzer Marine gave me the opportunity to visit their tugs on the River Tyne, I was like a kid at Christmas.

One of the problems with arranging my visit to the tugs was that I needed to select a day when there were some shipping movements to observe. I must admit that the people in the Svitzer office were very helpful and basically said that if I just rung them the day before then they'd let me know if they had any towage operations that day. So, I carefully studied the Port of Tyne Shipping Movements webpage and tried to decide which day would be best.

Unfortunately, I didn't make things easy for myself due to the fact that I only had one week left on Tyneside before returning to my home in Southampton and it appeared that I'd also chosen a quiet week for shipping on the Tyne with only a few small ships coming and going that didn't require tug assistance. However, after a couple of false starts, I finally phoned the Svitzer office on Wednesday 29th April 2009 and got told "yes, we have a Nissan car carrier coming in at 2.15pm so get yourself down to the quay by 1pm to meet the tugs before they head down river to meet it."... read more...