One of the items up for bids dur­ing Des­ti­na­tion Stur­geon Bay’s Fire and Ice Silent Auc­tion on Feb­ru­ary 19th was a tug ride donat­ed by The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny (the “Tow­ing Com­pa­ny”).  Des­ti­na­tion Stur­geon Bay’s largest annu­al fundrais­er is an event that takes place each year in Feb­ru­ary and includes fam­i­ly friend­ly events such as an orga­nized hike, ice carv­ing, snow­man build­ing, the din­ner and auc­tion, and a gala.

The Tow­ing Com­pa­ny is the newest tug­boat oper­a­tion in Stur­geon Bay.  Last fall, the Com­pa­ny sta­tioned two (2) tugs in Stur­geon Bay, includ­ing one of its his­toric “G” tugs and a for­mer Navy YTB.  These tugs offer time­ly ship assist ser­vices to the Tow­ing Company’s cus­tomers call­ing at Fin­cantieri Bay Ship­build­ing (FBS) and they also pro­vide strong ice break­ing assets for ice work in the chan­nel and the mid-South­ern end of Green Bay.

Intro­duced to the Fire and Ice event by Marine Trav­elift, the Tow­ing Com­pa­ny thought a tug­boat ride around the scenic Stur­geon Bay area aboard one of its tugs would make a nice auc­tion item and help con­tribute to the local com­mu­ni­ty.  The tug ride will take place some­time over the summer.

“Since we’re new to the area, we were look­ing for a way to get involved a lit­tle bit.  A sim­ple mon­e­tary gift is always help­ful, but the dona­tion of the tug ride gives us the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet local res­i­dents and gen­er­ate some fund­ing for com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment at the same time.  As the new kid on the block, it is impor­tant to us to intro­duce our­selves, be good cit­i­zens, and make a con­tri­bu­tion to our new neigh­bors.  We care a lot about the com­mu­ni­ties in all the ports we serve, and when Erich Pfeifer shared this oppor­tu­ni­ty with us, we knew it would be a nice way to get involved in Stur­geon Bay.  An event like this helps us part­ner with and sup­port oth­er area busi­ness­es in a pos­i­tive way, and we are hap­py to play a small part!” says Joe Star­ck, pres­i­dent of the Tow­ing Com­pa­ny.  “I look for­ward to meet­ing the lucky win­ners of the tug ride!”