Tag: Museum Ship

Loss of a Museum Tug – Pegasus

vintagedieseldesign5 Comments

It was sad to hear that this past week, the tug Pegasus made her last trip to the great shipyard in the sky. Figure I would throw together a little post about a cool old vintage tug that would meet an unfortunate end this week.

The Pegasus was built in 1907 by Skinner Shipbuilding in Baltimore, for Standard Oil Company, as the S.O. Co. 16. The tug would later be renamed the Socony 16, and eventually wound up as the Esso Tug #1 after several rounds of company reorganizations. McAllister Towing of New York would purchase the steam powered tug, and rebuild her. Converted to Diesel propulsion, an EMD 567 was installed in place of the large engine and boiler. Now renamed the John E. McAllister, she would join the companies massive fleet doing shipdocking and other harbor work. McAllister would also purchase sister tug Esso Tug #2, and rebuild her the same way, now renamed as the Roderick McAllister. Another Socony sister tug – the Socony #14, would find a new home with Philadelphia’s Independent Pier Company, and was renamed the Jupiter. She also is a museum tug in Philadelphia.

Unknown photographer, Courtesy of Dave Boone
Ernie Arroyo Photo, Courtesy of Dave Boone

By the 1980’s, towing companies were selling off the last of the older, converted steam tugs. Numerous smaller companies would benefit from this, and would give many of these older tugs a new life. In 1987, the John E. McAllister was purchased by Hepburn Marine Towing of New York, where she was renamed as the Pegasus.

Photo by Jay Bendersky
Photo by Jay Bendersky

Hepburn Marine would do various work throughout the city, including spending several years towing carfloats for the New York Cross Harbor Railroad. Hepburn would ultimatly charter the tug James E. Witte from Donjon, the former Central Railroad of New Jersey tug Liberty for doing this work – a tug much better suited. Pegasus would be retired in 1997.

The Tug Pegasus Preservation Project was formed, and spent many years actively restoring the tug from the hull up. Volunteers spent several years actively restoring various parts of the tug, and the Pegasus would tow the Lehigh Valley Barge #79 (The Waterfront Museum – see link below) numerous times around the city. I was only ever inside the Pegasus once, a few photos are below.

Pegasus at the 2009 New York Tugboat Races
Wheelhouse
Inside the deckhouse.
Galley

McAllister would repower the tug with a WWII surplus LST package – a 900HP EMD 12-567ATLP, with a Falk (Falk designed, however several contractors during the war built them, including Esco and Lufkin) reverse-reduction gear. This was one of the most common tug repower packages used after WWII, and I am slowly working on a large post about them.

The engine in the Pegasus was originally installed in Landing Ship Tank (LST) #121, shipped by EMD 6/16/1943. LST 121 was launched August 16, 1943 by Jefferson Boat & Machine. 121 would spend her career on the Pacific front and was present at the Marshall Islands, Iwo Jima, The Marianas, Western Caroline Islands and the Tinian Capture, earning 5 battle stars. She would be sold for scrap in 1946.

The Pegasus project fell dormant, and was looking for new caretakers and leadership for several years. Unfortunately, nothing would come to fruition. The museum ship world is one of the hardest aspects of preservation out there, and it gets harder every year as these boats get older. We have lost numerous preserved tugs just in the last few years. Times are tough, but be sure to help support your favorite museum ship. Every one of these groups needs all the help they can get.

Links of interest:
John E. McAllister/Pegasus – http://www.tugboatinformation.com/tug.cfm?id=659
LST 121 – https://www.navsource.org/archives/10/16/160121.htm
(Former) Website of the Preservation Project – https://web.archive.org/web/20191222165321/http://tugpegasus.org/index.htm
Tug Jupiter, Socony #14 – http://philashipguild.org/
Tugster posts on the Pegasus – https://tugster.wordpress.com/category/pegasus/
Waterfront Museum (LV #79) – https://waterfrontmuseum.org/

Re-purposed

vintagedieseldesign1 Comment

In 1952, the Great Lakes Towing Company would purchase the former Milwaukee Fireboat “M.F.D. #15”.    Great Lakes Towing, looking to build a large lake tug, for doing offshore over lake towing chores, would purchase the fireboat, and strip it to its bare hull.   Over the next 2 years, the fireboat was rebuilt into a tug, including its conversion to Diesel Electric drive.   Now named the “Laurence C. Turner”, after the president of the company, she would become Great Lakes Towing’s largest tug.  The tug was no youngster, built in 1903 by the Ship Owners Shipbuilding Co., in Chicago, and came in at 118’ long, 24’ wide and a 13’6” draft. 

1954 Cleveland Diesel ad featuring the “Laurence C. Turner” – Great Lakes Towing’s 25th Diesel Tug. She would go on to become Great Lakes Towing’s flagship for quite some time.

Coincidentally a few weeks ago I was browsing a 1949 issue of Marine News, and came across an ad for Boston Metals Company, advertising a slew of surplus WWII vintage equipment.    Boston Metals was a rather prominent ship breaker and scrapped quite a bit of WWII era vessels such as Destroyer Escorts, Landing Crafts of all sizes, Liberty Ships and everything else you can think of. 

Naturally, doing all of the Cleveland Diesel research lately – two engines caught my eye.   While it was common to see these engines listed in the trade publications for sale, it was rare (as in, I have yet to see it anywhere other then this one ad) to see the actual engine serial numbers listed.   So, off to the records…

Record for Cleveland engines 11907-11909 – Collection of my Cleveland Diesel research partner J. Boggess. Click for a larger view.

Engines 11907 and 11909 were originally part of Cleveland Diesel order #4752, which covered a vast portion of Destroyer Escorts.   These specific engines (and two others) would go into 1943 built DE-278, to be named the “USS Tisdale”.  DE-278 was never commissioned in the US and went to Britain as part of WWII Lend-Lease and would be commissioned by the Royal Navy as the “HMS Keats”.  She would receive partial credit for sinking German U-Boat U-1172 as well as U-285.   After the war, the Royal Navy returned the “HMS Keats” to the US, where she would be sold for scrap in 1946.  The other pair of 16-278A’s from the “HMS Keats” would wind up in Norway, in the “MS Rogaland”.

Cleveland 16-278A Propulsion Package model.

“HMS Keats” was powered by 4 “Navy Propulsion Diesel Generator” packages.  These were a 1700HP Cleveland 16-278A engines, which drove an Allis-Chalmers 1200kW, 525V DC generator.   In turn these provided power to 4 Westinghouse 1500HP DC motors, of which two in tandem drove each prop shaft.    After the war, Cleveland Diesel would wind up purchasing back quite a number of engines, which in turn they rebuilt to new condition and resold.   In some cases, new serial numbers were added, however some kept their original number.    Cleveland would wind up with two engines from the “HMS Keats”.  Each of these engines were put on a single base, with one of the Allis-Chalmers generators, as well as adding a belt driven 35kW generator mounted on top of the main generator.   This power package (along with a single Westinghouse motor) would be a very common tug propulsion package, and we will dive into that more down the road in a future article. 

Engine room of the newly converted tug, from the 8/1954 issue of Diesel Times, which featured the “Laurence C. Turner”.

Engine 11907 was rebuilt and sold to Tracy Towing Line in NYC, and used in the tug “Helen L. Tracy”, and 11909 would go to Great Lakes Towing Co., for use in the “Laurence C. Turner”.   By now the “Laurence C. Turner” was totally rebuilt, and now looked like a tugboat, and not a fireboat.   The tug would have provisions for a crew of 13, a large central galley, 7 state rooms, 2 heads, and an 18 person lifeboat.   One interesting feature was the Almon-Johnson electric towing machine on the back deck.  

In 1972, the “Laurence C. Turner” was renamed as the “Ohio” to fit in more with the fleets state class naming.    In 1977, she was re-powered.    Out came the electric drive, and in went a brand new, 2000HP EMD 16-645E6 engine with a Falk reverse-reduction gear and air clutches. All of this drives a 102″x72″ 5 bladed wheel.

The new engine in the “Ohio” – a 2000HP EMD 645, taken in the same spot as the photo above. Ohio has one of the largest engine rooms of any single screw tug I have ever been on.

The “Ohio” would be Great Lakes Towing’s main lake tug until being laid up in late 2014.   111 years of service, 60 of which as a tug – Not bad!  But her life did not end there.    In 2018, the Towing Company donated the “Ohio” to the National Museum of the Great Lakes, in Toledo, Ohio.  The “Ohio” was moved into place at the Museum in October of 2018 and has been under restoration since.   “Ohio” has been fully water blasted, repainted, and cleaned up.   The Wheelhouse has been fully restored, and work is well underway by volunteers on the rest of the boat.   “Ohio” will be dedicated this coming week as a museum ship, and alongside her will be the new tug “Ohio” getting christened at the same time as Great Lakes Towing’s newest tug.  The “Ohio” will be an excellent addition to the museum and will be open for tours later this year.

“Ohio” now at home at the National Museum of the Great Lakes, in Toledo. In rear, is the “Col. James M. Schoonmaker”, one of the most exquisite museum ships I have ever seen. This was in October of 2018, before the restoration started.

National Museum of the Great Lakes

HMS Keats at Navsource

D-Day plus 75

vintagedieseldesign3 Comments

Today marks the 75th anniversary of D-Day, operation Overlord, and the storming of the Normandy Beaches. Way more then I could ever write has been written about today’s events, and I defect to others on that one. But, today I will share two D-Day Veterans anyone can visit.

Tug LT-5, the “Major Elisha K. Henson”, now a museum ship in Oswego, New York

First up is the LT-5, “Major Elisha K. Henson”, and later known as the “John F. Nash”. The LT-5 is an Army “Large Tug”, built by Jakobson Shipbuilding in 1943. The LT-5 was used on D-Day towing various barges, in part of the operation of building an artificial harbor off of Normandy. After the war the tug was used by the Army Corps of Engineers in the Buffalo area, until begin retired in 1989. Today the LT-5 is part of the H. Lee White Maritime Museum in Oswego, New York.

The LT-5 is powered by an 8 Cylinder, 1200HP, direct reversing Enterprise DMQ-38 engine.

H. Lee White Maritime Museum, Oswego, New York

The second ship is the LST-393, or Landing Ship – Tank. 393 was part of the late night landings on June 6th, and would ultimately make 30 round trips to the beach, earning 3 Battle Stars.

LST-393 in Muskegon

After the war, the LST-393 became a Ferry named the “Highway 16”, operating between Muskegon and Milwaukee. The 393 is one of only two (the other being LST-325) original LST’s remaining afloat in this country. LST-393 is now a museum boat in Muskegon, Michigan.

LST-393 is powered by a pair of EMD 12-567ATL engines, which are in essence one of the reasons the 567 line became as well known as they have. These engines were contracted under Cleveland Diesel, and built by EMD in LaGrange, IL. Much more to come about the 567ATL.

LST-393 Museum, Muskegon, Michigan

Another survivor on this page, is the engine in the header photo. This Cleveland 16-278A in the Sturgis, Michigan power plant, used to be in Destroyer Escort HMS Kingsmill (later DE-280). After the war the ship was scrapped, and the engine became one of four 278’s in this power plant. The HMS Kingsmill was at Normandy on June 6th doing Patrol work.

As always, thank a Veteran for their services that they performed for our freedoms.

Also, support our museums and museum ships. All over museums are struggling for support, even more so are the maritime related ones. It takes a lot of of effort to keep something afloat, especially when its 75+ years old. Visit, Support, Volunteer.