The 656-foot freighter, M/V FEDERAL RIDEAU, was refloat­ed by The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny ear­ly Tues­day morn­ing, July 29th, after the ves­sel went aground in Lake St. Clair ear­ly Sun­day morn­ing, July 27th. The ves­sel was car­ry­ing 22,672 tons of wheat from Thun­der Bay, Ontario to Mon­tre­al, Que­bec. The Tow­ing Company’s tugs SUPERIOR, NEBRASKA and MISSISSIPPI respond­ed to the ground­ing at the request of its long-term cus­tomer, Fed­nav, which has been a Full Ser­vice Lakes-Wide Tow­ing Con­tract cus­tomer of the Tow­ing Com­pa­ny for many years.

Joseph Heaney, Tug Cap­tain in Detroit and Tole­do, was the first to respond on Sun­day morn­ing. “We were work­ing against the envi­ron­ment and the clock,” says Heaney who has worked for the Com­pa­ny for over 24 years. Heaney fur­ther explained that the efforts of all crews of the Company’s tugs con­tributed to the suc­cess­ful refloat­ing of FEDERAL RIDEAU. “When we got to the scene, we noticed that the boat was fight­ing the cur­rent, the wind was pick­ing up, and there was a struc­ture just 6‑feet away from the ves­sel that we had to stay clear of. It was a tough sit­u­a­tion.” The Com­pa­ny is com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing great cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion. Heaney explains, “Cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion is our pri­ma­ry dri­ver, we’ll do what­ev­er it takes. When one of our tugs arrive at the scene, our cus­tomers can be con­fi­dent that they will receive a job well-done because they can count on 116 years of expe­ri­ence from The Com­pa­ny. I’m proud to say I’ve been here in Detroit and Tole­do for over 24 of those great years.”

The Great Lakes Tow­ing Company’s Full Ser­vice Lakes-Wide Tow­ing Con­tract, offers lakes-wide com­pre­hen­sive tow­ing ser­vice with read­i­ly avail­able “round-the-clock” tugs and crews. In addi­tion to har­bor ser­vices, The Com­pa­ny pro­vides emer­gency assis­tance to ves­sels that are wrecked, dis­abled, or in dis­tress on the Great Lakes. No claim for sal­vage under the mar­itime laws is made by the Tow­ing Com­pa­ny for emer­gency ser­vices pro­vid­ed under the Company’s Contract.

To learn more, vis­it www.thegreatlakestowingcompany.com

About the Full-Service Lakes-Wide Towing Contract

The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny has the exper­tise need­ed to make tow­ing on the Great Lakes effi­cient, eco­nom­i­cal and prob­lem-free. No oth­er tow­ing com­pa­ny can match our com­pre­hen­sive ser­vice and years of expe­ri­ence. Now in our sec­ond cen­tu­ry in the tow­ing busi­ness, we oper­ate tug­boats specif­i­cal­ly designed for Great Lakes har­bor tow­ing on all five of the U.S. Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Sea­way. We pro­vide ser­vice in over 40 ports in all 8 U.S. Great Lakes’ states (Michi­gan, Illi­nois, Indi­ana, Min­neso­ta, Wis­con­sin, Ohio, Penn­syl­va­nia, and New York.) The Com­pa­ny has, over the years, rou­tine­ly under­tak­en major fleet improve­ments to rebuild and re-engine its tugs, demon­strat­ing its com­mit­ment to the Great Lakes region, its home since 1899.

We real­ize that you have a choice of tow­ing com­pa­nies with­in the Great Lakes, how­ev­er, there are sub­stan­tial dif­fer­ences in the ser­vices offered, and the addi­tion­al ben­e­fits and oper­a­tional sav­ings that can be real­ized when using the ser­vices of The Great Lakes Tow­ing Company

The Great Lakes Tow­ing Company’s fleet of tug­boats is U.S. reg­is­tered and meets the high­est indus­try and gov­ern­ment stan­dards. The Com­pa­ny is a mem­ber of THE AMERICAN WATERWAYS OPERATORS RESPONSIBLE CARRIER PROGRAM, which is an inde­pen­dent­ly audit­ed code of prac­tice to ensure safe and effi­cient tug­boat oper­a­tions — the high­est stan­dards of tow­ing safe­ty in the Unit­ed States. These high safe­ty stan­dards also con­tribute to our out­stand­ing per­for­mance record and an almost “delay-free” ser­vice. This rep­re­sents a sav­ings to a ves­sel operator’s bot­tom line cost of towing.

The Full-Ser­vice Lakes-Wide Tow­ing Con­tract cov­ers ves­sel har­bor assis­tance, includ­ing ice­break­ing and ancil­lary ser­vices such as res­cue and assis­tance to dis­abled, ground­ed or dam­aged ves­sels and barges. We also offer tow­ing of every type of float­ing struc­ture from port to port any­where on the Lakes, barge tow­ing with­in har­bors, and through-car­go barge move­ments whose ori­gin or des­ti­na­tion may be oth­er than a Great Lakes port, such as a move­ment of heavy-lift car­go from a Great Lakes port, down the Mis­sis­sip­pi Riv­er sys­tem, to a Gulf port, as well as oil and haz­ardous mate­r­i­al spill response services.

Contact

Joseph P. Star­ck, Jr.
Pres­i­dent and Director
The Great Lakes Tow­ing Company
Tel: 216–367-8126
E‑mail: jps@thegreatlakesgroup.com