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Sixty years on - Part 2 Victor and Valour
The first two new post World War II tugs built for Foundation Maritime, Foundation Victor of 1956 and Foundation Valour of 1958 are still operating. The latter is running in the fresh water of Lake...
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Sixty Years On - Part 3, Vibert
The port of Baie-Comeau, QC was developed around the presence of abundant timber and hydroelectric power which lead to building a paper mill, then an aluminum smelter. Foundation Maritime provided tug...
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Sixty Years On - Part 4 - The Bantugs
Before getting to the core of this series it is necessary to set a bit more of the background. As stated before, the Foundation Company of Canada established itself in Montreal in about 1910, with...
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Evans McKeil - end of the line (amended, again)
The Evans McKeil, a veteran Canadian tug has reached the end of its useful life and has gone to the breakers. Dating from 1936 it had a 53 year career under the United States flag before coming to...
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Océan cleans house - 1. Océan Echo II
The Quebec City based operator Groupe Océan has been growing substantially in recent years with expansion to British Columbia and Jamaica and the acquistion of new tugs. On May 21 they took delivery...
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Océan cleans house - 2. Océan Basques
2. Océan BasquesGroupe Océan is disposing of its older idle tugs. One of those is Océan Basques dating from 1972 when it was delivered by Collingwood Shipyard to MIL Tug + Salvage of Halifax. The...
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Océan cleans house - 3. Mega, and maybe Avantage
3. MegaGroupe Océan has recently decommissioned some of its older idle tugs, possibly for sale or in some cases more likely for scrap [ see Part1 and 2 - previous posts]. One of the tugs is the...
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Venture Sea - final chapter
The end has apparently come for the notable tug / supplier Venture Sea a former stalwart of Secunda Marine. Under the name Jarvis it was reported beached at Alang India on June 17, and scrapping began...
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Océan sells off older units
Quebec City based Groupe Océan has apparenty sold its four older units to the Georgetown, Guyana company BK Marine Inc. (The company is part of the huge BK Group, a conglomerate of transportation,...
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French tug for scrap
The French emergency towing and rescue tug Abeille Languedoc arrived in Brest France, August 2. After transferring some equipment to another tug, it was due to move to an adjacent dock where it will...
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Dover Spirit tows from Halifax
The tug Dover Spirit sailed from Halifax in the early morning of August 20 towing the barge MM 143 en route to Sydney, NS,The barge is carrying a large Manitowoc crawler crane and other gear used in...
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Arctic Circle
The icebreaking escort tug Polar Circle arrived in Halifax on October 7. Its story is covered in the sister blogShipfaxfor that date..
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Remember the Oceanic
In looking back through my files I note a significant tug arrival in Halifax on December 7, 1982. It was a different scene 40 years ago - large tugs were still used to tow ships and oil rigs, and the...
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Oceanic and Bugsier updates
Thanks to readers for more information on the big German tugs:[see also previous post]Oceanic As per the December 7 post, the Oceanic sailed from Halifax December 18, 1983. After re-engining in 1985...
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Two Old Timers
The longevity of some tugs is hard to believe. Spending many years in fresh water may be an explanation in some cases, but for others it must be quality of construction and maintenance over the years....
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Christmas Greeting
As with companion blog ShipfaxI like to send out older photos at Christmas time, along with best wishes for the holiday season.My choice for this year is the tug Avantage when it was operating for the...
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Kamarina and an ocean tow.
The deep sea tug Kamarina arrived in Halifax January 3 towing the disabled bulk carrier Ale en toute to Setubal, Portugal. For a detailed account of the tug and its tow, see the January 4 post on...
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No news for Kamarina - updated
The Italian tug Kamarina, as per the previous post, is in Halifax to tow the disabled bulker Ale to Setubal. Since that post the tug remained at anchor in Bedford Basin until February 9 when it moved...
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Missed Opportunity - perhaps
The powerful icebreaking tug Polar Circle sailed from St.John's, NL February 8 for Bergen, Norway. This week (about February 10 or 11) it was announced that GC Rieber Shipping AS had acquired full...
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On February 15 the Kamarina sailed from Halifax for Lisbon - light tug. See also companion blog Shipfax of same date. [Updates Tugfax post of February 11.].
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