The West Rascal

Flipping through my many tugboat photos for a project I'm considering I came across this shot of the West Rascal,

dating back to late 2011. For any Powell Riverite who watches the water she will be a familiar sight, as for a

good number of years she was a fixture on our waterfront, one of the 2 tugs run by Westview Navigation. As

tugs go, she's small, and with no winch it's a bollard pull only. She was already 30 years old when she arrived in

Powell River, and today she's pushing 50. She was sold to the Ledcor company in the spring of 2012; they moved

her to Victoria, with a new name, Storm Rider, and for those who like to keep track, re-named her again last

year as the Lionel D Ledcor. I watched her many times to-ing and fro-ing in front of Powell River,

she was a pretty sight on our waters.

Man At Work

The man here is working on the end of the ramp of a barge/tug combo making its way into the Catalyst mill harbour

for a pick-up and delivery. He's one of the deckhands on the Stormaway V, a tug working out of Campbell River.

The photos are a backwards sequence.

It's a much better job in the summer. These raw cold, wet and windy days we've been having are not great days
to be working on the water. The snaps were taken Sunday.

Looking Back

Long-time Powell River residents will remember back to February 1975, when 4 rail cars of poisonous liquid chlorine
disappeared from a barge on its way to the local paper mill. The Chieftain III was the tug towing the barge to Powell
River on the evening of Feb 18, in a storm. When dawn broke the following morning the crew noted that the 4 rail
cars were missing. So somewhere in Malaspina Strait, between Glower Point near Gibsons and Powell River,
there still sit 4 rail cars of potentially catastrophic chlorine. Many, many thousands of dollars have been

spent looking for them. In 2004 government scientists said they "might" have located the rail cars, but
they're not sure. After 40+ years of rusting on the bottom there is still no consensus on how
dangerous they really are - estimates run from "very" to "not at all".

These days the Chieftain III is mostly used to haul log booms to the south, in this case, yesterday, to the
bluffs at Gabriola Island, opposite the Harmac pulp mill south of Naniamo.

Those Dull Drab Days

Those drab, dull days, when it's difficult to find a photography subject.
Normal temperatures for the first half of November are somewhere around 10°C so the 3 to 5's we've been

having the last while have been decidedly cool. Add in a breeze, and dark threatening skies and it feels

more like mid-winter than mid-autumn. And definitely not a nice time to be on the water. Which is

probably why the Seaspan Queen was the only boat on the chuck Tuesday, other than our ferries.

The Sea Imp XI

 

For someone like me, who takes a lot of tugboat photos, it's a pleasure to see a new boat in our local waters.

The Sea Imp XI was launched May 27th, so at less than 3 months old she's barely wet her keel.

She was built in Maple Ridge, at the Sylte Shipyard, for Catherwood Towing. They've apparently put her

on the City Transfer drop-trailer barge run, as I've seen her here the last week or 2, with these the first photos

as she leaves the Mill harbour.  A fine looking boat.

.

The Seaspan Cutlass

The Seaspan Cutlass and two chip barges, her third barge was already on its way into the harbour.

Since they knocked down the scrub along a section of the mill road, it's a much better view

of the tugs on the far side of the "hulks" that make the artificial harbour for the mill.

Below is the Cutlass making her way back south at Grief Point, just an hour or
two later, pulling 3 empty barges a good way behind her.

The Fraser Navigator

I like tugboats, and tugboat photography, and as I think this is a very good looking tug, you get to see her too.

This is the Fraser Navigator leaving the Mill harbour with the City Transfer barge on Tuesday.

What Better ...

.... than to spend some time on the waterfront, watching the boats go by, on what was a glorious first day of spring.

The tug is the Inlet Knight, working out of Campell River. Her tow, stretching out a good bit behind her, was a log boom.

That's Harwood Island, on the right, and the small one is Vivian Island; in the top photo the shore is

Texada Island, and the mountains are on Vancouver Island.

The Barge Run

Three or four times a week, week in and week out, City Transfer tows a barge of semi-trailers between

their terminal in Richmond and their terminal at the Mill harbour and back. A good deal of the retail merchandise sold

in Powell River stores arrives this way. Here we have Catherwood Towing's Sea Imp IX pulling the City Transfer

barge back south on Malaspina Strait, having just rounded Grief Point on one of our poor weather days last week.

Inclement Weather

When the weather is poor in front of Westview, it is always worse on the other side of Grief Point, and it is

common to see a southbound tug and her logboom marking time in the waters off the Seawalk till the weather clears.

Which is what the Inlet Knight spent most of a day doing during some recent inclement weather. She was joined in

mid-afternoon by the Yucata. (And I only got slightly damp taking these.)

Taking Delivery

The Seymour Crown taking delivery of a barge of chips, one of 2 chip barges and a barge of hog fuel

that had been towed up from the Fraser River, an event that happens at the Catalyst mill nearly every day.

The Tee-Shu

The Tee-Shu - for the 35 years from 1979 she was the papermill's harbour tug. Through

all the corporate changes that involved - MacMillan Bloedel, Pacifica, Norske and now

Catalyst - she remained the Tee-Shu. Come 2014 she required a very expensive refit,

money, apparently, that Catalyst could ill afford, and in early 2015 she was sold

to a company in Prince Rupert. They changed her name to W.Pearce, and

the name Tee-Shu is no more.

This photo was taken 6 years ago today, September 16, 2010.

At The Hulks

If the Catalyst Mill follows through on their recent decision to sink the 4 westerly

hulks for a diving attraction, then I will be getting fewer photo opportunities like this one.

From the archives : dated April, 2014

Oncoming Traffic

No matter how or where one's traveling - on the road, on the strait - it's

always best to keep an eye out for the oncoming traffic

Putting a Rod In

 When there's nothing happening on the water, one might just as well put a rod in

In the background, left, Texada Island's Grilse Point, and right, the light on Cyril Rock