On Wednes­day, Decem­ber 16, The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny and Great Lakes Shipyard’s employ­ees joined togeth­er at the Company’s Cleve­land facil­i­ties to cel­e­brate the chris­ten­ing of the new tugs PENNSYLVANIA and WISCONSIN. 

Cus­tomers, ven­dors, com­mu­ni­ty, friends, fam­i­ly, and the pub­lic were invit­ed to join vir­tu­al­ly for the live streamed event. 

“Amid the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, it is remark­able that the Tow­ing Com­pa­ny has per­se­vered with the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of these two new tugs, despite the adver­si­ty the pan­dem­ic brought to bear, not only on us, but the indus­try, not to men­tion the coun­try, and the entire world.  The Tow­ing Com­pa­ny, as always, showed its resilience and its resolve to mus­cle through these dif­fi­cult conditions.” 

Joe Star­ck, Pres­i­dent, The Great Lake Tow­ing Company 

The Tug PENNSYLVANIA was chris­tened by ves­sel spon­sor, Louise Kandz­er, girl­friend of Gregg Thau­vette, the Company’s Senior Vice Pres­i­dent-Oper­a­tions; and the Tug WISCONSIN was chris­tened by ves­sel spon­sor, Sal­ly Stevens, wife of Robert Zad­kovich, Vice Pres­i­dent-Busi­ness Development. 

The new­ly con­struct­ed Tugs PENNSYLVANIA and WISCONSIN are the fourth and fifth tugs, respec­tive­ly, in a series of ten (10) 64-foot Damen 1907 ICE design har­bor tugs that Great Lakes Ship­yard is build­ing for The Great Lakes Tow­ing Company’s oper­a­tions.  The tugs are 64’x24’x11’, pow­ered by two 1,000-hp MTU 8V4000 Tier III diesel engines, and gen­er­ate over 30-tons of bol­lard pull. Their propul­sion sys­tems include the Canal Marine designed Logan Flex­aDrive Hybrid pow­er sys­tem, allow­ing the tugs to oper­ate on elec­tric pow­er while at idle, under­way at low speeds, or when under low loads, with­out the need to uti­lize the main engines, there­by reduc­ing emis­sions and the cost of engine main­te­nance.  The tugs’ com­pact size and high maneu­ver­abil­i­ty make them ide­al for the nar­row water­ways and low bridges that char­ac­ter­ize har­bor tow­ing on the Great Lakes. 

The sixth tug, not yet named, is slat­ed for a Sum­mer 2021 com­ple­tion. Addi­tion­al fol­low-on tugs of the same design are avail­able for pur­chase by third par­ty buyers. 

All pho­tos are cour­tesy of Paul C. LaMarre III.