The Great Lakes Group

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The Great Lakes Towing Company Expands Fleet with Addition of Four More Great Lakes Harbor Tugs

The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny, which oper­ates the largest fleet of ship­dock­ing tug­boats on the U.S. Great Lakes-Saint Lawrence Sea­way, has announced the addi­tion of four (4) more tug­boats to its fleet.

The four (4) new­ly pur­chased tugs will be named after four (4) of the Great Lakes; Tug MICHIGAN, Tug HURON, Tug ONTARIO and Tug ERIE. The Company’s Tug SUPERIOR has been in ser­vice for years, oper­at­ing in the Port of Detroit.

These four (4) tugs will be imme­di­ate­ly added to the fleet, and pro­vide some new life and oper­a­tional sta­bil­i­ty to our day-to-day busi­ness,” says Gregg Thau­vette, Vice Pres­i­dent – Oper­a­tions, The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny. Thau­vette con­tin­ues, “The equip­ment and machin­ery onboard, includ­ing the tow­ing gear and fire­fight­ing equip­ment, are ide­al for our oper­a­tions across the Great Lakes, and will help us to con­tin­ue to pro­vide har­bor tow­ing ser­vices to our cus­tomers in more than 35 U.S. ports, in all 8 U.S. Great Lakes’ states.”

In addtion to the four (4) new­ly pur­chased tugs, Great Lakes Ship­yard is in the process of reac­ti­vat­ing the Tugs LOUISIANA and PENNSYLVANIA from its exist­ing fleet, both of which have been out of ser­vice for sev­er­al years. Once com­plet­ed and back in ser­vice, the Com­pa­ny plans to also reac­ti­vate the Tugs IDAHO and CALIFORNIA, which were tak­en out of ser­vice over the last two sea­sons. The Com­pa­ny is also in the process of dry­dock­ing, refur­bish­ment and major main­te­nance on 15 tugs from fleet as part of the Company’s ongo­ing Major Fleet Over­haul Pro­gram. The sched­ule for this pro­gram includes:

Recent­ly Completed:

  • VERMONT
  • MISSOURI
  • NEW JERSEY
  • INDIANA
  • ARKANSAS
  • NORTH DAKOTA
  • KENTUCKY
  • FLORIDA
  • NEW YORK

In Progress:

  • NORTH CAROLINA
  • RHODE ISLAND
  • OHIO

Next to be Overhauled:

  • SUPERIOR
  • WYOMING
  • MISSISSIPPI

As The Tow­ing Com­pa­ny con­tin­ues main­tain and upgrade the tugs in its fleet, the Ship­yard will also con­tin­ue to expand and grow,” says Joe Star­ck, Pres­i­dent of the Tow­ing Com­pa­ny and Great Lakes Ship­yard. Star­ck fur­ther explains that, “We are cur­rent­ly in progress of build­ing one of two (2) new tug­boats for New York Pow­er Author­i­ty (NYPA) Nia­gara Pow­er Plant’s oper­a­tions in Buf­fa­lo, NY and we are also build­ing two (2) small work barges the Unit­ed States Army Corps of Engi­neers (USACE) Rock Island Dis­trict. We also have many oth­er very inter­est­ing new con­struc­tion projects on the table.  This new ves­sel con­struc­tion busi­ness is in addi­tion to our ongo­ing reg­u­lar, in-house, com­mer­cial and gov­ern­ment repair and mod­i­fi­ca­tion work, where we reg­u­lar­ly per­form rou­tine dry­dock­ing, main­te­nance, emer­gency repairs and cus­tom fab­ri­ca­tion services.”