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Tugboats Ply Boston Harbor
By Chris Burrell
 Listen to story (Real Audio)
Tugboat crew members boast about the
great view they enjoy from their workplace. (Photo by Chris Burell)
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BOSTON - June 26, 2008 - The Big Squeeze
HOST: Every day, the sound of tugboat engines rumbles across Boston's
inner harbor. The powerful little boats guide much larger vessels
through the harbor's narrow passages, including the mouth of the Chelsea
River, which is one of the tightest squeezes known to local mariners.
Among the ships are the 600-foot tankers that supply every drop of
New England's heating oil, gasoline and jet fuel. As WBUR's Chris
reports, it takes four tugboats to thread tanker through the eye of
the needle at Chelsea Street Bridge.
BURRELL: George Lee is the docking pilot aboard a tugboat called the Harold Reinauer. The tug and three others from Boston Towing pull free of the East Boston docks and turn hard right for the narrows of the Chelsea River.
GEORGE LEE: The bridge is the apex of our career It's the last thing
we do because it's the most difficult.
BURRELL: Here's why: Fuel tankers that serve this region are 600 feet
long and 90 feet wide. That makes for a really tight squeeze at the
Chelsea drawbridge, where the opening is just 96 feet. Lee explains
the nautical physics.
LEE: As you enter the bridge, the ship is actually moving sideways,
and you need to stop it so you can go through the bridge and not do
any damage. What happens is, using the ship's engine as a rudder,
you work against tugboats on the bow and stop the slide of the ship.
BURRELL: At 49, with close-cropped gray hair and a perpetual game
face, Lee waits on deck of the Harold. The truck tires that buffer
the tugboat's flanks squeak and crunch up to the tanker's hull. With
no harness or clips, Lee grabs hold of a swaying wood-and-rope ladder.
He clambers up some 20 feet and swings a leg over the rail to board
the fuel tanker, New England, which has sailed to Boston from a refinery
in New Brunswick, Canada.
Lee makes it look easy, but the danger is no joke. As recently as 2006, a pilot on the Chelsea River fell to his death from such a ladder.
With Lee now safely aboard the tanker, the tugboats motor into positions.
The throttles on the Harold hiss as Captain Mike Hickey waits for
Lee to radio commands down from the fuel tanker. With Lee's direction,
Hickey is all action at the helm. Grabbing steel throttles. Turning
the chrome wheel.
HICKEY: I'm gonna slide in here and work up against this caisson.
BURRELL: The stern of the New England tanker looms above the tug as a deckhand tosses a tie line across. Tankers here are the length of three football fields. The tugs are no longer than a 30-yard pass.
Hickey takes it from here.
HICKEY: Then I'll have control of the starboard side of the ship
as we make our approach to the Chelsea Bridge. You'll think it's
too late. I'll let my line go. I'll stop and hold the boat there,
he'll just drive by me and go through the bridge.
BURRELL: There's no margin for error in this work. The tugs whistle
in answer to every command from the docking pilot.
BURRELL: The fuel tanker's cargo is protected by a double hull, but
its own fuel is not. A collision with the bridge could cut a gash
that would spill tens of thousands of gallons of diesel into the river
or knock the bridge out of alignment. But on this day, everything
goes just fine. With a quartet of whistles, the tugboat fleet from
Boston Towing squeezes another behemoth through the straits at Chelsea
Street Bridge.
HICKEY: The New England is transiting the Chelsea bridge now... we'll
take that full opening... proceed three-quarters. Thank you, sir.
BURRELL: Tugboat captains and pilots call this a ballet. And with tugs sporting names such as Hercules and Ethel, this dance happens just about everyday from dawn to dusk in the Chelsea River.
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