With a name like Sweet Pea , the words tough and versatile probably don't come to mind. However, Baltimore-based McLean Contracting Co.'s smallest pusher tug is one of the company's most adaptable boats.
The 25'3" Sweet Pea belongs to a workboat class defined by its portability, shallow draft and lack of U.S. Coast Guard licensing and inspection requirements. Sometimes called a "truckable tug," this vessel type was first used by small marine contractors as a cost-efficient alternative to a tugboat. Today, with companies putting an emphasis on cost cutting and lean operations, these little workhorses are gaining popularity on large construction and dredging projects with companies like McLean.
By most accounts the first transportable pushboats began to appear on the scene in the early 1980s. Their roots are found in the small pushers that date back to post-World War II when U.S. government surplus craft were converted to commercial use.
According to Brent Dibner of Dibner Maritime Associates LLC, the U.S. Army Sea Mule was a widely used truckable pusher tug during World War II.
"These were twin-screw, inboard-pontoon pushboats with knees. They were designed and built by Chrysler and were assembled from four sections that were bolted together," said Dibner. "They were typically 22 feet long and 12 feet wide with two 286-horsepower gasoline engines. Hundreds more of the 42-foot by 15-foot units were built by Chrysler and Murray & Tregurtha . Truckable and used for many purposes including positioning sections of pontoon bridges, they also were useful in lightering cargo."
AFFORDABLE AND MOBILE
Purpose-built "bridge builders" began to appear as a job-site boat in the late 1970s, but the design parameters of transportability and affordability were joined together by two brothers from Orange, Texas, into what we know today as the truckable inland pushboat.
"It was really our father Raymond who came up with the idea," said Ricky Lee of Inland Boat Works . The family ran a variety of towing- and shipyard-related businesses and had a front row seat to the 1980s offshore oil bust. Towboat and barge construction was at a standstill and capital was scarce.
"My father thought that maybe there would be a market for a small pushboat, around 25 feet by 12 feet, that a dock builder or marine contractor could use. So we built one."
Close to 300 boats later, it looks like the elder Lee was onto something.
Randy Lee, Ricky's brother and the current president of Inland Industries Inc., parent of Inland Boat Works, moved to Panama City, Fla., in 1980 and founded Marine Inland Fabricators , which specializes in 20'-26' truckable towboats and barges. His boats added a keel cooler made of steel channel welded to the hull. This also added longitudinal strength to the hull since these boats are typically built without interior bulkheads. Lee sold the Florida yard in 1989. Rudy Sistrunk, a former executive with Eastern Shipbuilding Group , is the current owner.
Marine Inland recently completed a 17-boat order for General Electric . The boats are the company's Clydesdale model and are representative of the typical truckable pushboat in today's market.
The boats are 25'3" × 14' × 5' and have a maximum draft of 4'. Thirteen of the GE boats have twin John Deere 6081 Tier 2 diesels each rated at 300 hp at 2,200 rpm. The other four have twin John Deere 6068 M3 Tier 2 diesels rated at 201 hp at 2,000 rpm each. The boats will work as dredge tenders moving mud scows close to shore, a common application for truckable pushboats with shallow drafts.
"The typical truckable pushboat is under 26 feet, so it requires no [Coast Guard] license to operate, with a beam of anywhere from eight to 14 feet, although we have built them much larger," said Sistrunk. "When you get past 16 feet in width, you are pushing the edge of the envelope if you are interested in trucking."
A legal load on a tractor-trailer is 8'6". As the width of the load increases, so do permit and escort requirements. Weight is normally not a limiting consideration as the average truckable is built of 1/4" steel and only weighs somewhere in the range of 25,000 lbs. The wheelhouse is usually bolted onto the deck so that it can be easily disassembled for transit. The GE boats have hydraulically operated telescoping pilothouses to allow for low bridge clearances on the Hudson River.
NEW DESIGN
The Clydesdale is very close to the original Lee brothers' design and has been copied in many forms, according to Ricky Lee. About 15 years ago Lee revamped the standard model at Inland Boat Works.
"I basically looked at the boat and revamped it so that it is more my signature look," said Lee. "I put the pilothouse on four posts rather than one and changed the design and added a false floor below it so that you can stow life jackets and other equipment."
The result was a design that more resembles a scaled-down pusher tug than the boxy earlier pushboat-like version. "Larger companies are realizing just how useful these boats are and how powerful," Lee continued. "Today, we are selling more to shipyards and dredgers than to our original market of the small contractor. These boats have a lot more butt than people realize."
Inland Boat Works has extended the concept of "truckable" to "transportable" with some of its larger boats.
"We have standard models, but we also build a lot of mission-specific vessels," said Lee. One of the newer models is 25'9" × 20' × 6'. For a recent delivery, the boat was loaded onto a barge and shipped up the Mississippi River to a shipyard, where it now moves vessels in and out of drydock.
"We have built these boats with crew quarters, you name it," said Lee. While crew quarters might be a bit rare for the truckable market, Lee's company has been adding 7-kw generators to run air conditioning and heating systems in the boats.
"There are some projects in which these boats are essential. For instance, a bridge we built over Sailboat Lake in Oklahoma or Lake Ray Hubbard in Texas," said Tom Besing, equipment coordinator for Evansville, Ind.-based Traylor Brothers , a high-risk, civil construction company. Traylor has a fleet of over a dozen tugs, including three truckables. "These lakes are landlocked and in order to shift the barges, which we also trucked in and pinned together, we needed the power of the truckable tug. We could not get by with a little workboat with outboard engines."
As the vessels have grown in popularity, many yards are branching into this relatively low-cost market segment.
In Palmetto, Fla., Progressive Industrial Inc. builds the boats in a factory setting, instead of one hull at a time. Brian Degulis, Progressive's founder, came to Florida from New York where he worked outdoors on tug repair. "We build all of our boats indoors here," he said. "We can be producing 10 hulls at once. Our approach is that of a manufacturer."
By taking that tack, Progressive takes advantage of economies of scale. "I can put more steel into the boats and make them stronger because I am buying more steel."
Even so, most boats are customized to suit each owner's mission. More power can be added, changes in the height of eye, larger push knees, beefier bits, winches and cable, etc. With one notable exception, there is very little standardization in the truckable market. The exception, of course, is length.
KEEPING IT UNDER 26 FEET
According to U.S. Coast Guard regulations, every uninspected towing vessel that is 26' or more in length must be under the command of a master of towing vessels.
Thus, the vast majority of truckable pushboats are just under 26' long. This means that a small pile driver can move his own equipment around. Also, on a large project, the truckable boat can stay onsite for shifting rather than having to hire a big tug to come in each time a piece of equipment needs to be moved. This is economical for contractors who must deal with a shortage of licensed mariners and other costs such as fuel.
"Our truckable boats, like Sweet Pea , are very useful for working in the protected waters of the harbor here in Baltimore or in Hampton Roads," said McLean Contracting Co.'s George Bosmajian. "We outfit the boats just as we would a larger tug in terms of fire and safety equipment."
As the truckable pushboat enters its fourth decade, it is clear that it has found a useful niche.
"For the contractor who is out there fighting for work, without the need of a capital-intensive tug, these small boats are a reliable and inexpensive tool," said Dibner.