Nav­i­ga­tion Sea­son Begins

Anoth­er car­go ship­ping sea­son is under­way on the Great Lakes. The sea­son offi­cial­ly opened on March 25, 2015 and The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny Tug MISSOURI was on time to assist the USS Great Lakes Fleet EDWIN H. GOTT down­bound the Soo Locks. The locks have been closed since Jan­u­ary 15 to under­go repairs and main­te­nance. Then on March 26, 2015, Tug NORTH CAROLINA  broke ice for Inter­lake Steamship Com­pa­ny MESABI MINER at the port ter­mi­nal in Duluth.

“We’re look­ing for­ward to the new nav­i­ga­tion sea­son,” said Joe Star­ck, Pres­i­dent of The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny & Great Lakes Ship­yard. “Our Cap­tains and crews from across the Great Lakes vis­it­ed our head­quar­ters in Cleve­land for Fleet Per­for­mance Train­ing just a few weeks ago in prepa­ra­tion of the new sea­son. Each employ­ee spent a week in train­ing cours­es on top­ics rang­ing from fire safe­ty to USCG require­ments to envi­ron­ment aware­ness. The Cap­tains and crews are opti­mistic about the upcom­ing nav­i­ga­tion sea­son and look for­ward to get­ting back on the water to pro­vide safe and reli­able tow­ing ser­vices to all of our cus­tomers. As many of the Cap­tains said to me dur­ing train­ing, ‘we will do the right thing with no short­cuts,’ and we will do that in a pro­fes­sion­al, world-class way.”

Ready & Will­ing: The Tow­ing Com­pa­ny’s Fleet Per­for­mance Training

The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny under­went its annu­al Fleet Per­for­mance Train­ing the weeks of March 9 — 13 and March 16 — 20. Com­pa­ny Tug Cap­tains, Engi­neers, and Deck­hands from all of the var­i­ous ports across the Great Lakes meet annu­al­ly for this meet­ing to under­go train­ing, learn about changes in U.S. Coast Guard reg­u­la­tions and Com­pa­ny pol­i­cy, and dis­cuss rel­e­vant indus­try top­ics. Train­ing included:

• Envi­ron­men­tal Aware­ness & Pol­lu­tion Prevention
• EPA Ves­sel Gen­er­al Permit
• Oil Spill Response
• Bilge Water Management
• Waste Oil Management
• Marine Fire Pre­ven­tion, Train­ing, and Firefighting
• Mar­itime Safety
• Eye Safe­ty & Hear­ing Protection
• Marine Con­fined Space
• USCG UTV Requirements
• Hypother­mia & Frostbite
• Lad­der Safety
• Lockout/Tagout
• Back and Neck Injury Prevention
• Towboat/Maritime Haz­Com
• Slips, Trips, & Falls
• Win­ter Safety
• Com­pa­ny Pol­i­cy and Procedure