Tug “JONCAIRE II” the first of two tug­boats to be built for New York Pow­er Author­i­ty – Nia­gara Project was com­mis­sioned dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny host­ed by Great Lakes Ship­yard and attend­ed by more than 200 on Tues­day, Octo­ber 20, 2015. The spon­sor of the Com­mis­sion­ing Cer­e­mo­ny was Karen W. Penale, Real Estate Admin­is­tra­tor – West­ern Region, New York Pow­er Author­i­ty – Nia­gara Project. “With the tra­di­tion­al break­ing of the bot­tle of Cham­paign, she declared “I name this tug­boat ‘JONCAIRE II.’ May God bless here and all who will sail on her.”

“Today we cel­e­brate the com­ple­tion of one project and the begin­ning of anoth­er,” said Joseph P. Star­ck, Jr., Pres­i­dent, The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny & Great Lakes Ship­yard, as he described the com­mis­sion­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the NYPA Tug JONCAIRE II and the sub­se­quent keel lay­ing of the new tug­boat for Reg­i­men de Pen­siones y Jubi­la­ciones del Per­son­al de la Empre­sa Por­tu­ar­ia Quet­zal, Guatemala, Cen­tral America.

Left to Right: Spon­sor, Karen W. Penale, Real Estate Admin­is­tra­tor, West­ern Region, New York, Pow­er Author­i­ty – Nia­gara Project, com­mis­sion­ing the com­plet­ed New York Pow­er Author­i­ty Tug JONCAIRE II, and Gregg A. Thau­vette, Vice Pres­i­dent, Oper­a­tions, The Great Lakes Tow­ing Company

Great Lakes Ship­yard was con­tract­ed by New York Pow­er Author­i­ty (NYPA) to build and deliv­er two (2) new tug­boats for the Nia­gara Pow­er Plant’s win­ter oper­a­tions in Buf­fa­lo, NY. The new tugs will aug­ment and replace aging ves­sels that are used for the instal­la­tion, removal, and main­te­nance of the Lake Erie-Nia­gara Riv­er Ice Boom and var­i­ous asso­ci­at­ed marine con­struc­tion projects. Con­struc­tion for the first tug began last April. The sec­ond tug is sched­uled for deliv­ery in late-2017.

The new tugs will be spe­cial­ly rein­forced with heavy stems and shell rein­force­ment for oper­a­tions in sea­son­al ice. The design of the con­ven­tion­al dri­ve tugs includes ele­vat­ed pilot­hous­es for improved vis­i­bil­i­ty when maneu­ver­ing, as well as a spa­cious work deck aft to facil­i­tate ice boom connections.

The tug con­struc­tion con­tract is the Company’s sec­ond major order from NYPA. In 2010, Great Lakes Ship­yard built the agency’s new 80’ x 34’ Ice Boom Oper­a­tions Barge, which incor­po­rates a Terex 80-ton pedestal mount­ed lat­tice boom crane.

A sep­a­rate cer­e­mo­ny fol­lowed mark­ing the keel lay­ing of a new 3,400 H.P. tug­boat to be built for Reg­i­men de Pen­siones y Jubi­la­ciones del Per­son­al de la Empre­sa Por­tu­ar­ia Quet­zal, Guatemala, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca (“Reg­i­men”). Rep­re­sent­ing the own­er at the cer­e­mo­ny was Eduar­do De Jesus Paiz Lemus, Pres­i­dente Jun­ta Administrador.

Con­gress­woman Mar­cy C. Kap­tur, US Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the 9th Dis­trict of Ohio, the prin­ci­pal speak­er, com­mend­ed the Com­pa­ny indi­cat­ing that “We are for­tu­nate to have a com­pa­ny like Great Lakes – their indus­try is the gift that keeps on giv­ing. They are [through their edu­ca­tion pro­grams] pass­ing on skills to the next gen­er­a­tion, who will keep this coun­try great.”

Kap­tur also paid com­pli­ments to The Company’s team – as well as spe­cial recog­ni­tion to Ronald C. Ras­mus, Pres­i­dent of the Great Lakes Group. She high­light­ed the sig­nif­i­cance of the achieve­ment, “To cre­ate here, in the heart of Amer­i­ca, a Ship­yard; a place that faces glob­al com­pe­ti­tion every day, is no small achieve­ment. It is extra­or­di­nary. Look at all of the sup­pli­ers that ben­e­fit from your efforts.”

As part of the cer­e­mo­ny, Shel­don B. Guren, Chair­man, The Great Lakes Group, shared a com­pa­ny time­line that illus­trat­ed The Tow­ing Company’s longevi­ty in and com­mit­ment to the region. He stat­ed that while the com­pa­ny is expe­ri­enc­ing expo­nen­tial suc­cess, it’s impor­tant not to lose sight of the impact it has had on the lives on Cleve­landers: “It’s a won­der­ful place to work – it’s been good to our staff, myself includ­ed. Over 28 employ­ees have been here for a decade or more…we do busi­ness with over 365 sup­pli­ers in North­east Ohio alone. In gen­er­al, I’m total­ly opti­mistic. Look at what’s hap­pen­ing in Cleve­land — there is much to be grate­ful for here.”

In his remarks Ras­mus thanked the employ­ees of the Ship­yard and indi­cat­ed that “We have estab­lished a firm core of expe­ri­enced employ­ees, but we need more to accom­mo­date the excit­ing work as we expand the Ship­yard. We now have the most advanced train­ing school [Max S. Hayes High School] as well as part­ner­ships with St. Mar­tin de Por­res School and Cuya­hoga Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege to train the next gen­er­a­tion of employ­ees in ship­yard career.”

Matt Zone, City of Cleve­land Coun­cil­man, Ward 15 explained the impor­tant role Great Lakes Ship­yard has played in the Cleve­land com­mu­ni­ty and North­east Ohio for over 116 years, “Great Lakes is such an impor­tant part of what we do in our city. They buy local, they sup­port local, they hire local. I can­not tell you how many indi­vid­u­als I know who have been employed here or trained here. I want to rec­og­nize the stu­dents of Max S. Hayes High School for the work they do here.” Both Direc­tor, Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment, City of Cleve­land, Tracey Nichols, and Coun­cil­man Zone pre­sent­ed Procla­ma­tions from the City and May­or Jack­son rec­og­niz­ing the Company’s con­tri­bu­tions to the City.

On August 19, 2015, the Com­pa­ny signed a con­struc­tion con­tract to build anoth­er of its Handy­Size Class, 3,400 HP twin-screw tug­boat for har­bor tow­ing oper­a­tions in Puer­to Quet­zal; a grow­ing prin­ci­pal com­mer­cial car­go, con­tain­er, and cruise port locat­ed on the Pacif­ic coast of Guatemala in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca. The buy­er, Reg­i­men de Pen­siones y Jubi­la­ciones del Per­son­al de la Empre­sa Por­tu­ar­ia (“Reg­i­men”), is a Pen­sion Ben­e­fits Plan for Port employ­ees and retirees who oper­ate a com­mer­cial tug­boat ser­vice in the port under a Port Author­i­ty fran­chise for the pur­pose of ensur­ing future retire­ment benefits.

The Handy­Size Class tug was designed by Jensen Naval Archi­tects & Marine Engi­neers, Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton. The new tug will be built by Great Lakes Ship­yard with deliv­ery next year. It is specif­i­cal­ly designed for har­bor work and coastal tow­ing. It is 74-feet long with a beam of 30 feet, and a design draft of 11.5 feet. It is to be built to Amer­i­can Bureau of Ship­ping (ABS) stan­dards and its Cum­mins QSK-50 main diesel propul­sion engines, each rat­ed at 1700 BHP@ 1600 rpm meet US EPA Tier III emis­sion reg­u­la­tions deliv­er­ing supe­ri­or fuel econ­o­my, dura­bil­i­ty, and reliability.

Great Lakes Ship­yard laid the keel for the Har­bor Tug for the Reg­i­men. Rep­re­sent­ing the Reg­i­men at the cer­e­mo­ny was Eduar­do De Jesus Paiz Lemus, Pres­i­dente Jun­ta Admin­istrador, who inscribed his sig­na­ture on the keel plate declar­ing that “The keel has been tru­ly and fair­ly laid.”

In recog­ni­tion of the sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ment for a U.S. domes­tic ship­yard to com­pet­i­tive­ly con­clude a for­eign sale, the U.S. Depart­ment of Commerce’s Inter­na­tion­al Trade Admin­is­tra­tion and the U.S. Embassy, Guatemala City, was rep­re­sent­ed by Anto­nio Pri­eto, Sr. Trade Spe­cial­ist, who was cred­it­ed by the Com­pa­ny with facil­i­tat­ing the trans­par­ent nego­ti­a­tions and sale.

About — Past Sponsors

Top row left: The Hon­or­able Ann Cas­tle, Assis­tant Sec­re­tary for Water and Sci­ence, chris­ten­ing the USGS R/V KAHO (August 2011); Top row cen­ter: Dr. Mar­cia McNutt, Direc­tor of the USGS, chris­ten­ing the USGS R/V MUSKIE (August 2011); Top row right: Rebec­ca Star­ck, M.D., Cleve­land Clin­ic Region­al Obstet­rics and Gyne­col­o­gy Depart­ment Chair and wife of The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny and Great Lakes Ship­yard Pres­i­dent, Joseph P. Star­ck, Jr., chris­ten­ing the Great Lakes Ship­yard Trav­elift AMERICA (July 2011); Bot­tom row left: Ms. Julene Mar­ket, owner/operator of Miller Boat Line, chris­ten­ing the Miller Boat Line Fer­ry M/V Put-In-Bay; Bot­tom row cen­ter: Con­gress­woman Mar­cy C. Kap­tur, US Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Ohio 9th Dis­trict; chris­ten­ing the Puer­to Rico Tow­ing and Barge Co. Tug HANDY-THREE. Bot­tom row right: Patri­cia Anne Lom­bar­di, Assis­tant Engi­neer of Pow­er Sup­ply-Project Man­age­ment Hydro/Transmission Group, chris­ten­ing the New York Pow­er Author­i­ty Pedestal Crane Barge, HAVASU II (Sep­tem­ber 2010).

Pho­to Gallery