16th Volume, No. 55 1963 – “52 years tugboatman” – 2015 Dated 12 July 2015 BUYING, SALES, NEW BUILDING, RENAMING AND OTHER TUGS TOWING & OFFSHORE INDUSTRY NEWS TUGS & TOWING NEWS FAIRPLAY XI CHRISTENED On a very sunny Friday afternoon and in the presence of five company tugs with a spectacular show, click HERE the new Fairplay’s tractor tug Fairplay XI was christened at the Wilhelmina pier in Rotterdam. sponsor lady of the tug Mrs Petra Resenhoeft, spouse of Wulf Resenhoeft of Fairplay Hamburg, threw the bottle of champagne and whish the tug and her crew a good and safe voyage. The Fairplay XI is unique thanks to its three engines, one of which is electric, with which both the fuel consumption as maintenance can be reduced. Wulf Resenhoeft told: basically the tug sail on its electric motor only, unless a job requires that the other engines be turned on. She is world’s first environment friendly emission Tier 3 tug. In addition, the tug has bollard pull of 70 up to 90 tons and she is one of the safest in its class. (Photo: John Regan) Advertisement PEGASUS, A TUGBOAT AND FLOATING MUSEUM, HITS ROUGH WATERS Pamela Hepburn walked on the steel decks of the Pegasus, in the shadow of its big black, stately 1/24 16TH VOLUME, NO. 55 DATED 12 JULY 2015 stacks. “She’s a bit tired for towing,” she said, her black Labrador, Cocoa, bounding alongside. “But mechanically, she’s in amazingly good condition.” Ms. Hepburn, 68, is a rarity in the maritime world: a female tug captain. And, her boat, the Pegasus, is also a rarity: At 108 years old, it is still able to pull barges. Many New Yorkers have grown accustomed to seeing the Pegasus, a working tugboat, docked on the West Side of Manhattan. But the old tug, which has served as something of a floating museum, classroom and symbol of New York’s maritime history, is absent this summer. The tug has lost its berth at Pier 25, and after being part of the Manhattan waterfront for 13 years, it is now docked unceremoniously at the end of a canal in New Jersey. Its operator, a nonprofit group called the Tug Pegasus Preservation Project, says it no longer has the money to oversee and maintain the tug. The organization has canceled the insurance for the tug and says the boat’s days in New York waterways may come to an end. The nonprofit has been unable to find a group in the area that will take over the tug, said Ms. Hepburn, who bought the tug in 1987, ran it commercially for 10 years and then restored it as an educational center. Ms. Hepburn, the group’s unpaid executive director, said she hoped to have the Pegasus operating this summer. But fund-raising has become more difficult, she said, and operating costs are high. In addition to maintaining and skippering the tug, Ms. Hepburn said she had put in increasingly long hours trying to handle its administrative affairs and raise money, but had run out of the energy required to keep the tug going. “I’m not capable of doing what I could do 10 years ago,” she said as she walked the deck of the Pegasus the other day at its current berth in Morris Canal in Jersey City. The tug had long relied on government grants, private donations and sponsored trips, Ms. Hepburn said, adding that, to raise money, the Pegasus had even begun offering Hudson River rides last summer, charging per person, but had few takers. “And now people will be disappointed we’re not coming back,” she said. Ms. Hepburn said that after taking a group out on the harbor last weekend, she cancelled the boat’s 2/24 16TH VOLUME, NO. 55 DATED 12 JULY 2015 insurance policy to avoid more payments. In the search for a group to take over the tug, Jan Andrusky, the chairwoman of the Pegasus project, said the group “would consider any offer, even relocating the vessel” out of New York. “It’s like a death we’re trying to handle — we’re just not sure what to do,” Ms. Andrusky said. “It’s just sad. We’ve got this beautiful asset, the engine runs, but financially, we weren’t making it.” “Wouldn’t it be a horrible thing if this ends up in a scrapyard?” she added. Ms. Hepburn, whose life has been intertwined with the Pegasus since she bought it, said the scrapyard was “the worst possible scenario” and not being considered. She said she and other volunteers had taught tens of thousands of visitors over the years about New York’s maritime history and its current status as a thriving commercial port. The tug, which for the past four years had been docked at Hudson River Park’s Pier 25 and before that at Pier 62, was used for educational trips up the Hudson and around city waterways. The tug is still in fairly good operating condition, and it underwent a $1 million steel hull renovation in recent years, said Ms. Hepburn, who has spent nearly her entire adult life working on tugboats. She grew up on the Massachusetts coast and was an avid sailor. After going to art school, she jumped at an opportunity to work as a deckhand on a tug, and over the years she earned her captain’s license. After working for various companies, she bought the Pegasus for $25,000 and towed barges mostly in New York Harbor, hauling oil barges, construction rigs and railroad barges. Ms. Hepburn lived on the Pegasus for many years and, as a single mother, raised her daughter, Alice, on the boat. Ms. Hepburn would bring the baby while working and hand her off to a crew member while executing difficult maneuvers. Ms. Andrusky, who manages a fleet of 14 tugs for Weeks Marine, a large marine construction company, called Ms. Hepburn a pioneering woman in the maritime trade and as much a vital resource as the aging tug itself. “She’s really been somebody who women admired in the industry; she propelled the growth of women in the industry,” she said. “She’s put her whole life into the Pegasus, her blood, sweat and tears, and lots of personal money into it.” Ms. Hepburn not only skippers the tug, but also has intimate knowledge of its aging, idiosyncratic mechanics. The Pegasus was built for the Standard Oil Company of Baltimore and was converted in 1953 from steam to diesel propulsion. After retiring the Pegasus from commercial work in 1997, Ms. Hepburn decided to turn it into a floating museum and worked with many volunteers, with donated materials, to keep it afloat. Roland Lewis, the president of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, called the plight of the Pegasus “part of a slow-moving tragedy, of losing a huge part of our historical heritage on the waterfront.” “We’ve done a good job of landmarking buildings and securing funds to keep them,” he added, “but we’ve fallen down in trying to do the same for our equally important maritime heritage.” (Source: The New York Times - By Corey Kilgannon) Advertisement 3/24 16TH VOLUME, NO. 55 DATED 12 JULY 2015 TRAGISCH EINDE VOOR EEN OPMERKELIJKE KAPITEIN - PIETER OTTOSEN OVERLEDEN In de nacht van dinsdag op woensdag maakte Pieter Emil Ottosen, beter bekend als de Vlielander sleepbootkapitein, een einde aan zijn veelbewogen leven. Van afkomst was hij half Deens, half Vlielands. Naar aanleiding van een conflict met een leverancier was zijn boot net aan de ketting gelegd. In zijn wanhoop zag hij geen andere uitweg. In een lange afscheidsbrief , gericht aan al zijn Facebook- en e- mailcontacten, schreef hij: “Dit betekent voor mij het einde. Ik kan met alle piraten vechten, maar dit niet. Ik ben sowieso doodmoe na jaren vechten.” Ottosen was een opmerkelijk karakter. Klein van stuk was hij voor de dooie dood niet bang. Met een nietige boot en soms gigantische booreilanden op sleeptouw trotseerde hij storm en ontij op alle wereldzeeën. Jarenlang hebben lezers van de Harlinger Courant mee kunnen lezen over zijn oceaanavonturen met De Vlieland. Met piraten en ander gespuis maakte hij letterlijk korte metten. Op zijn sleepreizen had altijd een vuurwapen bij de hand, tegen alle regels in. Hij aarzelde niet er gebruik van te maken als een zeerover zijn levenswerk te na kwam. Zoals veel kleine mannen had hij een overmaat aan geldingsdrang en zat hij vol sterke verhalen. Wie hem beter kende vergaf hem dat. Achter zijn ruige uiterlijk verschool zich een klein en eenzaam hart. Ottosen was altijd op zoek naar vriendschap, maar vond die niet altijd in de vorm die hij nodig had. Hij hield van de goede dingen des levens. Zijn gulheid was onbegrensd en legendarisch. De motorsport was zijn tweede grote liefde, naast de sleepvaart. De afgelopen jaren organiseerde hij op het bedrijventerrein Oostpoort de Harlinger klassieke motorraces. Na afloop gaf hij uitgebreide barbecuefeesten voor al zijn motorvrienden. Legendarisch zijn de biefstukken als deurmatten, de kisten vol met sliptong en de vaten met koel bier. Tijdens de race-evenementen reed hij zelf heel vaak mee. Hij kon kiezen uit een prachtige verzameling historische renmachines. Bij de wedstrijd van 2014 in Harlingen kwam hij in de eerste ronde ten val. Desondanks stond hij enkele uren later alweer aan de startlijn. Ook buiten Harlingen liet hij zich niet onbetuigd – vaak met succes. Regelmatig stond hij op het erepodium bij racedemonstraties van Nederlandse klassieke rensportorganisaties als SAM, CRT, HMV en RMM, bijna altijd vergezeld van zijn jongste zoontje Eduard. Zij tweeën vormden een onafscheidelijk koppel.