Learning to Share the Waterways with Tugboats and Barges

One of my earliest recollections of oddball things that have happened during local fishing trips involved what I came to understand was caused by a tugboat pushing some barges out on the Intracoastal Waterway. I was well up a shallow creek at the time, when, all of a sudden, the water around me started swirling and disappearing, much like someone had flushed a commode, and the boat began moving the opposite direction I was trying to go with the trolling motor.

I didn't know what to make of the situation. For a few unnerving moments, I considered that I might have entered the twilight zone. Then, though, just as fast as the phenomenon had begun, it stopped, and everything returned to normal--again like a commode. It wasn't until I got back to the marina that evening and talked to Bill Brown, however, that I learned what had happened.

With that lesson learned, I wasn't so surprised at the squirrelly sensation I felt in my boat the first time I came up behind a tug pushing a barge on the Intracoastal Waterway. Even though I probably was a couple hundred or so yards back, the shimmying was very noticeable.

According to one tugboat worker, "The wheel wash, or strong underwater current, from a tug can cause severe turbulence for hundreds of yards behind the vessel. The safest thing to do is to stay well back or pass as wide as possible."

I also read about a fella who, while growing up around the Intracoastal Waterway, would wait for a tug to pass. Once the water started getting sucked out of an area, he and playmates would dash out on the newly exposed land to pick up crabs and whatever junk they could find. "We just had to get back to shore before the wall of water came rushing in and caught us," he said.

When dealing with tugboats and barges, you can't afford to overlook the dangers involved. For example, the No. 1 cause of serious collisions between recreational boats and tugs is the former crossing the latter's tow cables. It's important that recreational boaters realize those "big ugly boxes," otherwise known as barges, are connected to tugs via a thick steel cable that can run up to 3 inches in diameter. A cable that big can saw a boat in half in a matter of seconds.

And what about this case of a weekend bass tournament gone wrong? It seems an angler and his partner had anchored their boat in a favorite spot that was uncomfortably close to the channel, near a sharp bend in the river.

After only a few minutes of fishing, the front-seater spotted an empty barge poking its gigantic bow around the bend. At first, he thought the barge was heading over toward the beach, but a few seconds later, it began swinging directly at his anchored boat. The two men stared briefly at the towering wall of steel moving ominously toward them before frantically trying to start the outboard. It coughed a few times, sputtered and quit. Both men had no choice but to dive overboard before their boat was run down. They subsequently reached shore unscathed.

The tug's captain used the wind, which was blowing 25 to 30 knots that day, and the current to "flank" the barge through the tight bend in the river. It appeared to the two anglers that the wind had caught the barge's bow and swung it too far toward the middle of the river. The tug's captain, however, claimed he was right where he wanted to be, and the bass boat had left him no room to maneuver.

And while we're speaking of being run over, there's this close call involving a rowing scull crew that one day crossed the path of a tug, which Captain Bob Deck was maneuvering in high water to pass downstream through a railroad bridge. When he saw what was happening, the captain threw all three main engines into reverse, but "within seconds," he said, "the scull disappeared from view in front of my barge, 600 feet ahead.

"Fortunately for those eight men," he continued, "they realized their mistake just in time to accelerate to a speed they had never before achieved. Lonnie, the bridge tender, hailed me on the radio to say they had been so close to being run over that the coxswain could have touched the barge."

That account and others are revealed in "Stayin' Safe on the River: Big Boats and Right-of-Way," written by Deck and first published in the May-June 2014 issue of Big River Magazine (click on this link for the full story: http://www.deckondeck.com/big-river-magazine/stayin-safe-on-the-river-big-boats-and-right-of-way/).

The author goes on in this article to describe water-skiers as making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. "In 40 years in the harbor, I cannot recall the number of times I have seen a boat pull a skier past my boat, then decide to circle my slower moving vessel," he explained. "Dozens of times, I have gasped in horror when a skier fell in front of my tow. So far, I have been lucky and was able to slow down or steer around enough to avoid running over any of them."

However, Deck has witnessed situations in which the people weren't as lucky. He cited one afternoon in 1996, when a pilot was pushing six loads in the narrow channel of the Minnesota River.

"I dropped my cup of coffee and watched in horror as a jet ski ran across the front barges and crashed into one of them," noted Deck. "The young man driving the jet ski was in the hospital for over a year and probably still isn't right." And in case you're wondering, the jet skier was sober.

Something people in recreational craft need to think about, according to Deck, is that, while a towboat pushing barges may seem slower than a speedboat or even a houseboat, the towboat cannot easily overcome its huge inertia. "A tow steering a bend or shaping up for a bridge span can throw the engines into reverse, attempting to avoid hitting an errant small boat," he said, "but doing so might cause the pilot to lose control and run aground or hit a bridge pier. No captain ever wants to be in the position of deciding whether to run over a small boat or to take out a bridge.

"Some boaters are obviously under the impression that all they need to know about the Nautical Rules of the Road is that unpowered vessels have the right of way over powered vessels," continued Deck. "While this is true, if they actually read all the rules, they would discover that a 'vessel restricted in her ability to maneuver' has the right of way over ALL other vessels--powered, sailed, paddled, or rowed--except those not under the control of an operator (a very rare situation, such as a runaway barge or a boat with a broken rudder)."

While our nation's inland and coastal waterways play host to thousands of recreational boats, they also carry barges, tugboats, towboats, and large ships loaded with tons of cargo 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. Being aware of the constraints under which these commercial vessels operate can arm recreational boaters with the best protection against danger and could save your life.

I leave you with this final caution: Remember that five or more short blasts on the whistle is the "danger" signal. Always stay clear of any vessel sounding this signal.

Captain Bob Deck, with his son, Cullen.

The excerpts I included from Bob Deck's article, as posted in Big River Magazine, were used with the permission of both parties.

Author and journalist Mike Mosedale once wrote a "Welcome!" for a couple of Bob Deck's books (Deck on Deck and Between the Sticks). I'm including it here, so that you'll have a better understanding of this man's credentials. It reads as follows:

"For anyone who has ever fallen under the spell of the Mississippi, it's hard not to be a little jealous of Bob Deck. A deckhand as a teenager and a captain by the tender age of 22, Deck worked the big river during the 1970s and 1980s, a boom time for the Twin Cities barge business. Like Mark Twain and George Merrick before him--two former riverboat pilots who also felt compelled to chronicle their experiences on the Big Muddy long after they moved on to new careers--Deck paints a vivid and nostalgic portrait of a working life on the river. And for budding river rats, he also provides some practical tips on how best to guide six barges and 9,000 tons of grain through certain tricky stretches of water in St. Paul."