Towline National Association of Fleet Tug Sailors April 2006 National Association of Fleet Tug Sailors Information on upcoming 17th Annual NAFTS Reunion Moctobi Memories Sinking of the Santa Maria The Basalt ARS Movie making in the 1950’s . .and Much More! ATR 7 during its trial runs in Boothbay Harbor Maine circa 1943-44. Scrappedin1946 she hada short life. Join us WWW.NAFTS.COM April 2006 Page: Towline National Association of Fleet Tug Sailors Towline Info. Chairman of the Board Raymond Evans President Rodger Dana Standing Committee NAFTS Membership Vice President Chairmen Dick Alley Still only $25.00/ year or join Treasurer Historical the “544” plan and get 5 years Jack Sweet Neil Bjornsen for the price of four! Secretary Tom Thomas Law Bring in a new member today. Directors Ralph Smith Neil Bjornsen Bob Campbell Membership Leon Emerson Tom Thomas As Before: Jim Gauntlett Big Thanks to Charlie Thomas Leo Grizzaffi Retail Sales For the editing help! Ted Hillman Harry Jaeger Harry Jaeger Clyde Longerbone Reunion Ned Lundquist NAFTOURS Pres. Allen McPherson Bill Milwee Towline Correction Nick Radke Rich Tetrault Correction: In the last edition we in- Ralph Smith Tom Thomas correctly listed the date of the sinking Hal Tenny of the USS Nauset (AT 89) on some Jim Wassmuth Web Site pages. Nauset was sunk in 1943, not Bob Yates Tom Thomas in 1944. Rich Tetrault NAFTS is the National Association of Fleet Tug Sailors. A non-profit vet- The editors regret the error. eran’s group made up of the men and women who served in the tugs and sal- Submit stories to: vage ships of the United States Navy, Coast Guard, and Army any time since [email protected] the first military tug was commissioned Postal: in the war between the States until the Rich Tetrault present. Towline Material The Towline has a circulation of ap- 216 Nesmith St. Suite 4 proximately 1,400 and is published on a Lowell, MA 01852 quarterly basis by NAFTS. The sub- scription is included in the annual mem- bership dues paid by the members. Cover photograph: ATR 7 The promised ATR/ATO edition is coming. Inquiries can be directed to: Towline, The editors apologize to those that have given us their stories. Next 19416 Mohawk Rd. Bend, OR 97702 issue, Promise! (866) 652-2038 Toll-Free April 2006 Page: 2 Towline National Association of Fleet Tug Sailors 6 Moctobi Memories A tour of duty on Moctobi by Jerry O’Con- ner 18 USS Grasp Decommissioning The “new” Grasp Says Goodby to Active Duty 9 2006 Reunion Update Get the Lowdown on the October Reunion 19 Sinking of the Santa Maria A 1948 Mataco saga 12 Atakapa Jack Tribute to a Great Tugger 22 The Movie Makers How the South Pacific was filmed 14 The Basalt Rock ARS John Ackerman acquaints us with the curi- ous birthplace of the ARS Departments 4 President’s Corner 28 In Memoriam 5 Editors Notes 30 NAFTS Ship’s Store 27 Membership Matters April 2006 Page: 3 Towline National Association of Fleet Tug Sailors Words of Wisdom from NAFTS President Rodger Dana Shipmates and Mates, Once again, shipmates Rich Tetrault and Tom Thomas have as- sembled a great issue of TOWLINE for us. We are sorry the Postal Service takes so long to deliver the TOWLINE issues. It seems that each issue takes longer to arrive in our mailboxes. Perhaps this issue arrived quicker than the last one. Don’t forget that each issue is made available at our great website, www.NAFTS.com. You will need your log-on and password to access it. Please send your stories and photos to TOWLINE. We need them to keep our magazine going. Also don’t forget to send some photos to our website photo editor, Mike Turner. We were saddened to hear that one of our founders has passed over the bar. George Kingston passed away at home in January. George would have been ninety in February. He was the organizer, president, chairman, and publicity man for NAFTS from its 1989 inception until 1999, when he chose to take a back seat role. We were blessed to have a leader with his energy and resources to bring an organization like ours to life. I, and many other shipmates, looked forward to joining George at the reunion hotel bar for a few drinks and many of George’s war stories. A wonderful shipmate. We will miss him. Harry and Shirley Jaeger, along with our contractor, Military Reunion Planners, have come up with an outstanding list of tours for the 2006 reunion. Also on the schedule is the world premier of the film “Tugs of War”, by independent film maker Robin Williams. The film will be shown at our 2006 reunion banquet. Robin visited and interviewed many of our members to gain material for this film. He also visited our British counterpart organization, the Deep Sea Rescue Tugs, DSRTA. We urge ship groups to plan their special activities for Friday evening at each NAFTS reunion. No other reunion activities are scheduled for Friday evenings to allow each ship group some time to do their “thing”. See you in San Mateo, Dot says “Hi”. April 2006 Page: 4 Towline National Association of Fleet Tug Sailors Notes From The Editors Rich Tetrault & Tom Thomas Email us at [email protected] Send material to: Rich Tetrault 216 Nesmith St. Suite 4 Lowell MA 01852 Ahoy Tuggers! On a sadder note, NAFTS longtime charter mem- ber George Kingston has passed away. We are assembling material for a notice about George in Well, we’d like to thank allof you who wrote to the next edition. compliment us on our first edition as Towline Editors. We appreciate your kind words. We’d This edition has some nice stories from our mem- also like to extend our thanks to our helpers, as- bers. John Ackerman has written an informative sociate editors Bill Cowles and Rick Koenig for tale about ARS construction during WWII. their assistance in pulling together this issue. There’s a nice story about life aboard Moctobi (ATF 105) and another tale about Lipan (ATF And one last thanks to thoseof you who sent in 85) and the filming of the movie “South Pacific”, stories for future editions. Without the tugger with three reports from crewmembers. Also, we tales sent in by our readers the TOWLINE would have a Mataco (ATF 86) story about the sinking be meaningless. Thankfully, some of you have of the “Santa Maria” and we have a nice smatter- heeded our requests and sent us some fine mate- ing of other articles for you. rial which we will use in the upcoming editions. We’d like to point out that our story selections Be sure to check out the info on the upcoming are determined by the needs of the TOWLINE, October NAFTS Reunion in San Mateo Califor- but we also try to stick to the order in which we nia. What a great way to combine an enjoyable receive the tales from our members. So, if you fun-filled vacation, at a reasonable price, and also sent us something and it hasn’t been used yet, connect with your shipmates. A Two-fer. rest assured that we still have it and will use it in a future issue. Ok, mates, keep those cards and letters coming. You can contact us online at: One other quick point. As we said in our last is- [email protected] sue, Tom is a Snipe and Rich is a Boatswain- You can call Tom for free with NAFTS 1-800 mate, so typing was never a part of our job de- number (1-866 652-2038). He’s out in Bend scriptions. So, if there is any way that you can Oregon so try to guesstimate the Port Coast time send your stories to us via email it makes things when he’ll be on watch. Rich can be reached at 1000% easier. We don’t want to discourage any- his home phone (978 459-5334) and he’s in body from sending us material through the regu- Lowell Massachusetts so he’s using Starboard lar old U.S. Mail. It’s certainly acceptable and Coast time See you next edition. won’t delay your story from being published, but text sent through email can simply be manipu- lated by us with our software and we don’t have to re-type the whole shebang. Our Associate Editors took up the slack this issue and retyped a P.S. We’re looking for a member that has Microsoft Ac- couple of stories for us. Thanks guys! cess database on their computer and would like to do some updating forus on the Smith list of ships. Any takers? April 2006 Page: 5 Towline National Association of Fleet Tug Sailors Moctobi Memories An EM’s Tour Of Duty on an ATF ported aboard as senior electrician’s mate. Spring 1976 to Feb 1981 By Jerry O’Connor The ship got underway for sea duty for reserve training on weekends and a two-week tour a cou- The article on the USS Quapaw by ET2 Joseph ple of times a year. The Moctobi also towed tar- Siesel in the December 2003 issue of Towline gets, barges, and mothballed or decommissioned inspired me to write about my tour of duty ships. We increased our manpower for longer aboard the USS Moctobi about the same time. trips by using Navy Reservists. This made it eas- ier on the full-time crew for the underway watch Back in 1976 when the USS Moctobi (ATF-105) schedules.