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Last updated: August 23. 2006 6:40PM
Tales of the river runners
For these seasoned tug boat operators, the end of the day is just the beginning of their story
While the tug departs just south of the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge across the river, Southerland heads down to the 60-year-old tug’s galley for his first mug of strong black coffee. It’s going to be a challenging few hours for him, but the weather looks good. The winds are brisk but manageable. The first stars peep out of a darkening sky. Conditions, he says, could be a lot worse.
Southerland, a bit over 6-foot-tall and trim at 59, is the harbor pilot in charge of tonight’s operation. Since 1972, the Castle Hayne-based Southerland has been working the river as a deck hand, captain and harbor pilot. Perhaps because of this work, he’s one of those people who exude confidence and serenity. Considering what he does for a living, this makes sense. He’s a fellow who needs to keep his wits about him no matter what goes wrong: Mistakes in piloting can be catastrophic.
Handling the Cathy McAllister tonight is Capt. Randy Bussey, a man with an easy laugh. Bussey is so enamored with the water he lives on a docked trawler in Wrightsville Beach. Together, he and Southerland have more than 60 years of experience on the Cape Fear. They say it takes a special breed to be a tug boater, and those who are not cut out for it realize it quickly. At the same time, there is nothing macho in their talk. Maybe their awareness of this reality makes them comfortable with strangers and easy to talk with.
You can’t imagine either of them behind a desk.
The Cathy McAllister, powered by a 3,250-horsepower turbo diesel with 16 cylinders – each about the size of a trash can – is one of two McAllister Towing and Transportation tugs heading down river to take control of a massive 950-foot container ship, YM Shanghai. The ship is wending her way up river for docking at the Port of Wilmington, a few miles south of the bridge. The YM Shanghai, which flies a Taiwanese flag, is among the largest container ships to dock here. Her containers, goods from Asia and other parts of the world, are unloaded and transported by truck throughout the Southeast.
The tug boaters’ schedule is based entirely on the location of the ships they haul. Everyone jumps into action when alerted that an arriving ship has passed the ocean buoy at the mouth of the Cape Fear River (usually by getting a call from the river pilot in Southport a few hours in advance). Once the ship enters the river, it passes a fail-safe point, where there is no turning back. It will need to come up river and berth no matter how bad the weather and no matter what happens. The reason is simple: The river is not wide enough for a large ship to turn around below Wilmington, and the only safe place on the river for a large ship is tied securely to the large port docks. If they fail, the ship will be stuck.
Tonight, Southerland will board the YM Shanghai and take control of her. The ship is longer than three football fields and more than 100 feet wide. She carries about 5,000 cargo containers and has a gross weight of more than 40,000 tons. Those containers, placed end to end, would form a train nearly 30 miles long. The weight of the ship and cargo is roughly equivalent to the combined weight of every man, woman and child living in Charlotte.
Using the two tugs and the ship’s massive engines – which generate more than 44,000 horsepower – Southerland will bring the ship up to a 1,200-foot-wide turning basin on the northern end of the port and turn her around so that her bow is facing down river before sliding her into her berth. That 1,200-foot-turning basin is essentially the width of the river. It’s a tricky operation with little room for error. The turning basin is only about 200 feet longer than the ship. And when you account for unwieldy winds and currents, those 200 feet can seem like mere inches.
Of course, Southerland is used to such tasks. As harbor pilot for McAllister Towing and Transportation, Southerland is tasked to maneuver ships into tight places, take them through bridges, between abutments, turn them and bring them in and out of docks. He does this from the ship’s pilothouse where he also directs the work of the tugs far below, using a hand-held, two-way radio. He does these operations nearly 700 times a year, sometimes taking large ships through the narrow bridges and channels along the Cape Fear to chemical and cement terminals north of Wilmington.
As the Cathy McAllister waits in the river waters off the port for the container ship, Southerland continues to sip his coffee in the tug’s wheelhouse. The tug’s mapping Global Positioning System glows faintly, along with other navigation equipment. The radio crackles periodically.
“It gets hairy every now and then,” he says. “The worse thing is the wind, you know, blowing on something the size of a container ship. The wind will try to blow it into the dock, and unless you’re careful, well, it can all get pretty precarious. The last thing you want to do is crash into a dock or tear down a crane.”
The running lights of the YM Shanghai are finally spotted from the tug’s wheelhouse in the distance coming around Campbell Island, south of the port. It’s about 35 minutes since the tug slipped from the McAllister dock. It is fully dark now, nearly 9 p.m. It will take another 30 or 40 minutes before the ship is actually visible through the darkness and ready to board. Southerland takes the opportunity to leave the wheelhouse and slip down to the galley to refill his coffee mug. Bussey takes some time to talk about his experiences with fog on the Cape Fear.
“Fog is not the worst thing for us,” he says, “but it makes the job harder because there is a lot more risk and a lot more to worry about. It’s been so bad here at times that you can’t see the bow of the tug boat. You don’t have any reference. All you have is your radar and GPS.”
He relays a story about one foggy day in particular when he was heading south in the waters off the port. “I’m watching my radar, and all of a sudden right in front of me are two fishermen in a Grady White fishing boat. I actually saw one of the guy’s eyes as he rushed up and hit the throttle and disappeared back into the fog. I never saw them again and couldn’t even find them on radar.”
The marine radio interrupts the story. The YM Shanghai is now silhouetted in the blackness, and gradually it becomes clearer and bigger. The ship is huge and higher than most buildings in the region.
“You know, this tugboat doesn’t stop easily. It takes 27 seconds from full ahead to full astern (from going forward to going backward). That’s a lot of time and a lot can happen,” Bussey says, continuing his story.
In the distance, the YM Shanghai is closing in and within minutes, the tug meets the container ship in the middle of the river. Side by side. Southerland is waiting on the tug’s deck for the meeting. He expertly steps over the tug’s rail and grabs onto the ship’s pilot ladder, which is made of rope and wooden runners. Without looking down at the swirling black waters between the massive hull and the tug, he climbs up the ladder onto a metal bridge and boards the ship. He’s followed by a much more awkward reporter, who does look down at the scum and jagged growth and barnacles on the YM Shanghai’s waterline, a living and teeming testament to the thousands of miles of ocean between Wilmington and the ship’s far-flung ports.
The boarders are met on deck by the first mate, who greets Southerland with a strong Eastern European accent and escorts him up numerous flights of steps to the dimly lit pilothouse high above the stacks of containers. It reaches at least 130 feet above the river’s surface, the height of a 13-story building.
Southerland meets with the captain, Jin-U Lee, then positions himself on the starboard wing. There are two wings, one on each side of an enclosed but expansive teak-trimmed pilothouse, the nerve center of the ship. From this incredible vantage point the ship is steered and navigated while at sea.
“Dead slow ahead,” Southerland says, outside the pilothouse on the wing, his voice nearly lost in the wind.
“Dead slow ahead,” Capt. Jin-U Lee repeats into a hand-held, two-way radio to his first mate standing behind huge control panels inside the pilothouse.
“Hard to port,” Southerland says. Capt. Jin-U Lee repeats the order, as the massive ship begins its slow and cautious turn, and captain and pilot commit to their intricately choreographed work.
Far below, positioned on the starboard side of the container ship’s hull, one of the tugs begins pushing the massive ship to port. Another tug, hidden from view, is situated at the ship’s stern, pushing to starboard (to the right). The tug at the bow looks like a bathtub toy compared to the ship’s towering hull. The tug is soon awash in white water churned up by its large prop as it struggles against the hull.
The wind blows the sounds of its diesel engine up to the pilothouse in undulating waves of slapping pistons: Swish-swish-swish. Swish-swish-swish. The child’s story is true: Tugs do chug when working. Who would have guessed?
“Dead slow ahead,” Southerland says again as Capt. Jin-U Lee repeats the order.
At one point the ship virtually straddles the Cape Fear River, its bow and stern facing the banks on either side with seemingly no room to spare. Capt. Jin-U Lee looks uneasy.
“How far into the channel is the depth?” he asks.
“It’s deep up to the edge,” Southerland responds, appearing calm and focused on his work.
The view of Wilmington is stunning from the starboard wing. The lights of the city sparkle and glitter in the distance. A flag snaps in the wind above the pilothouse. The city seems peaceful, the bridge empty of vehicles. Perhaps there’s no one to witness the spectacle of this monolith appearing like a spectral floodgate across the Cape Fear River.
The Port of Wilmington looms in the distance. Tonight’s cargo load will add to the almost daily barrage of commodities coming from abroad into Wilmington. In fiscal year 2004, the port handled a bit more than 2.3 million tons of cargo, and in that same period, the port handled 330 ships and 50 barges. The commodities are goods coming in from all over the world, and after they reach Wilmington, they’re distributed throughout the Southeastern United States.
Perhaps to relieve the tenseness, Capt. Jin-U Lee asks Southerland where there’s a good restaurant in Wilmington.
“There are many of them in the riverfront area,” Southerland responds, pointing to the downtown area beyond the bridge. His eyes then dart back to his work.
“Stop engines,” Southerland says. The captain repeats the order, as the ship continues to pivot.
Turning the ship around takes about 45 minutes, and once turned, it takes another 45 minutes to get her secured and situated so the huge cranes are aligned to lift the cargo containers off of her. The entire operation, from when the tug leaves her dock until her return, takes four hours.
During the ship’s approach to the dock, Southerland moves inside the pilothouse. Cap. Jin-U Lee offers him a cup of coffee, black no sugar, and he sips it now from a fine china cup and saucer.
As the ship touches dock and is made secure with huge ponderous lines, its hundreds of shore lights snap on, producing a startling flash of light that would be blinding at sea or when navigating on the river. The lights reveal a virtual city of steel and mark the completion of this leg of YM Shanghai’s journey.
With some final maneuvering, Southerland and Bussey’s night is complete. At least for this night, anyway. Other ships are already crossing the Atlantic, and tomorrow may mean another trip down river to meet another cargo vessel.
With his job done and the ship tied to the dock, Southerland scampers down the newly placed gangway and saunters easily back to the Cathy McAllister, which awaits him, held to the dock by her powerful engine.
The dock grows busy with arriving trucks and vehicles. “That ship handles very sluggishly,” he comments, as the Cathy McAllister slips from the dock and heads back up river to her berth. Perhaps he’s thinking of his next piloting encounter with her and gauging his responses.
For tug operators, another ship is always around the bend.
And like others who make their living on the water, they never know what the ocean will bring.
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