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Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803 · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Dude do and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: there's Chuck and Jerry's here too for the present moment,
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: and this is stuff you should Know.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: That's right, another listener request. These are just kind of
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: pouring in now, or rather, we're leaning on them more
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: than we have before, I guess, because they're great ideas.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: But this one came also from the live show in Atlanta. Yeah,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and do you remember this guy? Do you remember his name?
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Yes? I do. It was Thomas, because this episode is
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Tugboats for Thomas.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Tug Boats for Thomas, and Thomas I believe works on
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: tugboats suggested it and this has turned out to be
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: just a bread and butter stuff you Should Know episode.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember when he was at the mic asking
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: the question and making the suggestion. He kept moving around
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: because he still had a scene.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Right, he's bumping into people. They're like, dude.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: So yeah, hopefully we'll do Thomas proud because we know
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: a little bit about tugboats now after researching them for
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: a little while. Big shout out to our friend Dave
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Ruse for helping us with this. You could do worse
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: than going to check out Ruse's podcast Bible Time Machine,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: and that has nothing to do with tugboats. But let's
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: talk about that.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: That's right, because we're gonna we're gonna sing the unsung
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: like we like to do on the show, because no
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: one ever thinks about tugboats. You see them all the time.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: If you live near harbor or vacation or visit cities
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: that have harbors, you see those tugboats and those big
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: ships and barges get all the sexy headlines. But those
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: tugboats are doing the yeomen's work. That's why they call
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: them nautical laborers early in their I Guess mission when
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: they first started coming online on c Yeah.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: So we'll get to that in a minute about the
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: history of tugboats because it actually goes back way further
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: than you would think, or not as far as you think,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: depending on what you're thinking.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: But thirteen twenty Nope, not that far twenty twenty.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: But one of the things that tugboats are that makes
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: them like the workhorses of the sea, as you can
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: put it, is that they have really impressive power to
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: tonnage ratiows. Yeah, so the size of the tugboat. The
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: actual weight the tugboat weighs compared to the amount of
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: power output its engines can create, usually in horse power,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: is really lopsided, so that these fairly comparatively light boats
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: compared to like the horsepower they create, can pull pull, pull,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: and they can push push push, and they can do
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: all sorts of amazing stuff, which is why they can
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: move these enormous huge oil tankers and shipping tanker or
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: shipping container ships with just the mighty might of their
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: little hearts. You'd think I would have practiced something like
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: that because it would have been way better.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean not to undersell tugboats. They are dealing
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: with things that are floating in water, which helps. But
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: these are big, massive things floating in floating in water.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Like you could get in a in a lake, my friend,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: and you could you could pull a rope attached to
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: a pontoon boat. What and you could pull that thing
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: around a little bit. You could swim that thing around
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: a little bit because it's floating in water.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: What universe do you live in that maybe.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Where you max out you are the tugboat of the lake, Josh.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: If you can do that to a pontoon boat because
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: these tugboats are a little compared to these huge barges
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: that are floating around. Does that is that making any
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: sense at all?
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: It's making too much sense. I've never considered myself the
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: tugboat of the lake. Can I be doing this with
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: my teeth? Can I be holding the rope with my teeth?
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Because that'd be much Uh, that's up to you.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, that'd be better swimming with two arms.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: We'll go do some some thirbig trials for it and
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: figure out the most the one right way to pull
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: a pontoon in a lake.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: We should tell them what bollard pull is to because
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: that's the other big sort of measurement when it comes
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: to tugging and pushing. A bollard first of all is
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: that big sort of chunky thing on a dock that
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: you'll tie a boat to the big daddies, And bollard
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: pull is the total amount of towing force generated by
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: a tugboat. And they measure that in killo Newton's.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: They do, And I've seen that often converted to tons,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: and it's the same thing. The more killing Newtons you have,
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: or the more tons you have, the more pulling power,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: towing power, pushing power that tugboat has. So there's this
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: one boat that Dave found called the Island Victory. At
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: least one article called the most powerful boat in the world.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: I saw other articles that name some other shipping contains vessel.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: But this, this tugboat, say, it's probably the most powerful
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: tugboat around. The Island Victory has a ballard pull of
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: four hundred or four thousand, six hundred and eighty kilo newtons,
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: which converts to four hundred and seventy seven tons. A
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: typical harbor tug, which is nothing to sneeze at, has
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: a ballard pull between five hundred and six hundred kilo
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: newtons six hundred killing newtons converts to sixty one tons.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: So this is an enormously powerful boat. And that's the
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: whole point. They're not fast, they aren't pretty, they're cute
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: in a really weird way, but they can generate so
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: much power that they can push a shipping container vessel around.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: More importantly, if you have a really high ballard pull.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: The reason that this is this rating is even there
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: is to find out which tug you can connect to
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: which vessel because of a vessel starting to go in
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: the wrong direction and it's about to crash into, say
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: a bridge. The tugboat has to be able to go
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: from zero, not moving at all in the water, to
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: pulling that boat in the opposite direction away from that
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: bridge in a moment's notice, and it has to have
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: that much power, and they do. They do.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: I think they are very attractive boats. You can tell
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: a tugboat because it has you know, they're built to
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: tug and push. So they have a very wide beam
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: which is the widest point of the boat. They sit
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: very low in the water, which is called a deep draft,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: and you know they're little short, stubby, wide guys that
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: sit really low. I think they're adorable and cool looking.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: They're very very stable. They're not tippy at all when
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: you know they're bumping against other things, they're pushing other things,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: and so they have to be just super stable. And
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: also love that they have beards that front bumper or
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: a or a balfender. They call it a beard in
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: that lingo, and I think that's pretty great.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it's just what they use. Like you said,
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: when they purposely or accidentally bump up against a larger ship.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: You can't just have the tugboat like crack up so
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: you have a bender.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: They're built a bump.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: They are built a bump. And some tugboats aren't necessarily
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: built with a beard. They'll have tires strung along the
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: side to use as a bumper as well.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think those are additional. I think the front
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: always has a built in beard.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, fine, So one other thing that you're going to
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: find about tugboats that will talk about more in depth
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: later is that they're extremely nimble. They're agile, they can
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: move in a different direction very quickly. And that that's
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: a really important thing too, because one of the big
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: jobs that the tugboat plays in, say like a shipping
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: lane at like a port, is to help avoid other
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: ships coming in or out. So they have to be
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: able to move not just pull a ship very easily,
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: but they have to be able to move quickly and
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: move that ship out of the way of say like
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: another ship.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And I say we take an earlier break
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: because we're at a great spot to break here before
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: we talk about the history of these things. You want
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: to do that. Let's break it all right, let's break
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: on three all right, I promise talk of history, and
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: here we go, because if you want to to invent
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: a tugboat, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was a pretty
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: good time to do it because we were using sailing
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: ships at the time for transporting people and goods and
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: all kinds of things. And those things are gorgeous, beautiful
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: in the water. They sailed great out on the high seas,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: but they did not do well, especially because they were
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: just sailing ships when they got around land in small,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: tight spaces, so they would you know, you've seen it
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: in movies. They would dock or not dock, but they
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: would anchor, you know, a couple of hundred feet from
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: shore and then start shuttling people and stuff in little
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: tiny boats because that's about as close as they could
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: safely get, and that's not efficient. Taylor would be rolling
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: over in.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: His grave, that's right. There was another problem too, Even
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: for a ship that could it was nimble enough to
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: kind of navigate its way into port, say like the
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: mouth of a river in a harbor or something, right
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: once it got in there, it had to wait for
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: the wind to whip up again to set sail once more.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: And this was not something that happened every hour on
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: the hour, even twice a day like the tide. Sometimes
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: you would have to wait for days or weeks for
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: the right wind to come up that you could catch
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: and ship back out to see again. Also not at
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: all efficient, So there was like a real need for
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: tugboats to be invented. But what's nuts is tugboats were
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: invented and then ignored for decades, and then finally the
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: guy who invented them, who was just totally made fun
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: of as we'll see for inventing tugboats, was vindicated. But
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: I think he was dead.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Already, Yeah, I think he was. He was from England,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: eighteenth century inventor. His name, no Lie, was Jonathan Holes.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: That's nuts.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: It is pretty nuts. And he thought it was like
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: a helper vessel is what he called it. It was
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: powered by a steam engine. But we were talking about
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: was tugboats. It could tow a sailboat in and out
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: of port. This was in seventeen thirty seven when he
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: filed for a patent. It was called a description and
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Draft of a new invented machine for carring vessels or
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: ships out of or into any harbor, port, or river
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: against the wind and tide or in a calm and
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: it was totally genius, thirty years before James Watt's steam
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: engine hit the scene, and everyone was like, what a
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: dumb idea.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Not only that, the people in his hometown of Gloucester,
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: they wrote a song about him. They wrote a song
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: they wrote like they thought this guy was so terrible
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: and just such a lousy inventor that there was a song.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: I'm guessing people would sing in pubs about him, specifically,
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: his name's in the song. And when Jonathan Holds with
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: his patent skulls invented a machine to go against wind
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: and stream, but he, being an ass, couldn't bring it
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: to pass, and so was a shame to be seen.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: Can imagine sitting there nursing like your mead, Well, everybody
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: around you is singing that song about you.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: You're not gonna try whip whip up a melody.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Oh oh, Jonathan Holes with his patent skulls invented a
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: machine to go against the wind and stream.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: You should finish, okay, but you, being an ass, could
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: and bring it to pass, and so was ashamed.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: To be seen. Wow, you went with the Gilbert and
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Sullivan version.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: I guess so all I know is We're getting kicked
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: out of his pub any second.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: Now, They're like, get out of Gloucester.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just stop it. We're gonna get so much
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: for that.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: So yeah, Holes was definitely ahead of his time, but
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: it would be sixty years before the first steam powered
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: tugboats his invention were actually put into good use and
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: they were deployed in Scotland. Yeah. Yeah, and as we'll see,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: actually Scotland was where the tugboat got its name at
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: the time. I'm not sure what they call them, maybe
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: still helper vessels, I don't know. But one of the
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: first things they did was to start pulling cargo along canals,
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: because at the time, if you wanted to move cargo
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: easily over land, you did it over water that was
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: cut into land, and you would do it with a
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: donkey pulling your cargo along the shore. The donkey was
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: walking on the shore with the line going from the
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: donkey to a little barge that was being pulled down
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: a water filled canal. That was the state of the
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: art at the time.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Have you ever walked along an old river way
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: that has those built up banks for that purpose?
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Toledo has something called the canal experience or historic
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: canal experience. There's some canals running through part of the
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: town from the early nineteenth century that you can walk
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: along and you're like, wow, this is an old donkey path. Huh.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I had my experience doing that in Akron, so
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: that maybe an Ohio thing. I believe the waterway through
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: sand Run is where that was. It was the same
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: deal and Emily or her mom or somebody you know,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: because you're up higher and you know it's an obvious
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: path and they're like, yeah, this this is where the
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: donkeys and pack horses would pull these things.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you donkey.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: There was a paddle steamer named Charlotte Dundas that was
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the first tugboat in operation towing for the very pert
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: strip I think two fully loaded sloops eighteen miles along
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: the Fourth and Clyde Canal at Glasgow at scorching two
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: miles and per hour. Yeah, but still like it was working.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: That was the key, That's all that mattered. Yeah, they
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: had all the time in the world, right.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: And you can bet that every donkey in Scotland was
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: like whow yeah, God they invented these things right.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Probably.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: So there was also as we talked about one of
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: the big problems with sailboats as shipping vessels was that
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: they had trouble getting in and out of harbors. They
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: had trouble navigating, They had to wait for the wind
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: so very quickly. It seemed kind of obvious that you
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: could if you could get one of these boats into
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: port into harbor, which you could use a tugboat for,
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: you could also pull it up river. It wouldn't have
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: to navigate any longer because you could just pull it
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: by a helper vessel into some of the cities that
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: were not located on the coast, but they were located
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: on a river. One example I can think of is
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: London and the Thames.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: That's right forty miles inland, so that was a huge
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: boon for London. At the time. There was a steamship
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: called the Majestic that worked with the East India Company
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: towing things back and forth up the Thames, and Liverpool
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: had one as well, so they were getting in on
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: the game there in the UK.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: They were so like I said, it was in Scotland
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: that tugboats got their name back in eighteen seventeen in Dumbarton.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: I think I'm saying that, right. Okay, oh, well, how
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: would you say it? I would say Dumbarton, but I don't.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: I'm just kind it's gotta be Dumbarton. Okay, okay, well
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: we'll go with one of those two. How about that? Sure,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: somebody built a steamship a tug boat that they named
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: tug They weren't called tugboats until this time, and I
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: guess that name stuck because it also makes sense practically
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: you're tugging a boat behind you, so that from that
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: henceforth on they were known as tugboats.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, earlier I was saying that they said, oh,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: this idea is so dumb. I don't know if it
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: was that it was so dumb, But steam power and
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: stuff that came along a little bit later, Like they
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: didn't have steam engines at the time, so they wouldn't
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: have even known it was dangerous. But when they did
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: come online? Why do keep saying that, I don't think
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: it fits right.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: It's a little anachronistic.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I think so. But online doesn't mean just on the internet.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Online just means like it's beginning to function right as
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: a thing.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, remember that Simpsons where Lenny goes little kid. Lenny's like, oh,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: he just logged onto my internet because he pooped his
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: pants out of he pooped his bathing suit with the
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: little interneting. So he said he logged onto his internet.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Oh that's so good. That's a good line. Oh boy, Lenny,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: and he logged onto my internet. Where was that?
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Steam engines were dangerous. They would blow up a lot.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: There was you know, when tugboats first started using you know,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: coming online using that steam. They were like I don't know,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, is it is it better to have this
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: thing that might blow up a port? Right?
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: And then the owners were like, well, we don't go
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: on these boats. We just owned them, so sure, I
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: mean that's fine, they can blow up. But yes, they
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: were viewed skeptically, I think, right like it was. It
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: was not just a done deal that these things were
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: like gonna save the industry or shipping. Yeah, but there
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: was a proving ground what ended up being a proving
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: ground on the Tyne River that connected Newcastle to the
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: North Sea. They were facing a problem, right. They had
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: these barges that were they were called colliers and they
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: were sailboats, but they were coal movers because Newcastle was
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: a huge coal producer, and these colliers could do a
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: lot of damage because they were hard to navigate. They
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: had all the same problems that any sailing vessel had.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: So there was a guy named Joseph Price who in
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: eighteen eighteen was like, I think I've got a solution
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: to this. I'm going to buy some of these steamships
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: that they're now being called tugboats, and I'm going to
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: have them pull these colliers, these coal ships up and
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: down the tyne, and I think it's going to revolutionize shipping.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: And Joseph Price was right on the money. The price
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: was right.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Oh man, you almost had it right out of the gate.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: So now you could get four hundred ton ships because
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if we mentioned they were
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: loading like railroad cars onto these things for the first time,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: so it was very very heavy stuff. They could go
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: to Newcastle for the first time. All of a sudden,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: people in more distant places could get coal. So it
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: wasn't just like hey, it made, you know, make things
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: cheaper and more efficient. It like it was literally changing
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: like lives all over the world, right, And.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: These new towns that were getting coal for the first
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: time were able to give up having to burn dried
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: donkey poop that they scraped up off the donkey trails
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: along the canals.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: It was huge for them, totally.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: So yeah, Joseph Price Price proved of the world. Like no,
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: these things are extraordinarily valuable, so much so that they're
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: going to completely change shipping from this point on. And
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: they definitely have and they're still just as useful as ever.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: And they they made a name for themselves so much
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: that the when the Royal Navy purchased their first steamships
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: of any kind, they were tugboats. Yeah, the Comet and
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: the Monkey, Comment and Monkey. And I can't decide whether
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: it's a band name or a cartoon name.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Comment and Monkey. That'd be a fun cartoon. I'd watch
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: that or drug. I'd also take that comment Monkey, just kidding.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: So yeah, they definitely proved their worth pretty early on.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is eighteen eighteen, and the first ones
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: were used shortly before that.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, And these were paddle boats by the way
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: up until the late nineteenth century. If you're picturing like
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: your little friendly tugboat in your mind as we talk
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: about all these stories, erase that and now picture a
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: tugboat with two paddles on both sides. It wasn't like
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: the big paddle in the back, like the sort of
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: fun things you ride around on at Stone Mountain Park
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: here in Georgia.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Sure, that's where they're most famous.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: They were paddle wheels on both sides, which seems a
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: little wider and more cumbersome, but that really really really
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: made them much more maneuverable and able to steer in
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: tighter places, and to steer in two different directions like
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: a right, I got one of those zero turned lawnmowers.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: You put those things in two different directions and you're
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: just spinning like a top.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: It's the exact same thing, because those two paddle wheels
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: were able to be moved independent of one another. And
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: once you can do that, yes, you just start doing
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: doughnuts to show off in the harbor, you know.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: So the nineteenth century came and went and those paddle
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: wheel tugs were replaced with screw propellers, which is another
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: term for a propeller like you see on a ship
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: like that's just called screw propeller. So like any ship,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: they were propelled by propellers and then diesel engines came along,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: and that's when everything really kind of changed, because when
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: you have a diesel engine, you can get some amazing
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: horsepower out of it, way more than steam. It's also
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: less dangerous. I think we talked about all this in
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: our Rootolf Diesel episode, and that's when the tugboats became
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: started to become the tugboats that we think of today.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: That's right, Shall we take our second break?
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: You bet?
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: All right? We took an early one, so we're gonna
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: take this one, and we're going to come back and
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: talk a little bit about well tugboats right after this.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: So you mentioned tugboats strike, right, I didn't. Oh, well,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: there's a tugboat strike. We have to talk about. That
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: really kind of demonstrates how how important tugboats made themselves
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: over the years. In New York Harbor, in nineteen forty six,
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: every single tugboat operator, there were three hundred of them
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: in the harbor at the time, they all went on strike.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: And this was very quickly it became evident how essential
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: tugboats were for everything in New York because there was
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: coal coming from Lake Erie through the Erie Canal to
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: the Hudson down to the Harbor and they would be
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: spread all throughout Manhattan and all throughout New York. Food
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: shipments came in by barge, garbage went.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Out by barge.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: New York operated on barges, and if you're using barges,
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: you need a tugboat to tow or push those barges.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: So when the tugboat stopped working, New York stopped working.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: And within twelve days the tugboat operators got their demands fulfilled,
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: which turns out to have just been nicer hats from
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: what I read.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they rationed food. They literally shut the lights down
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: on Broadway. It was their their backup plan of just
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: you know, using smaller boats to ferry stuff in and out.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: They were just like, Manhattan is far too big for
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: this already, right, And the tugboat operators, I guess, I mean,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: what a what a moment to sit back and just
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: sort of like float, say yeah, now, yeah, gloat a
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: little bit now now, who was important? The tugboat driver Thomas,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: One day we'll be in Atlanta so we could get
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: the word out about tugboats and New York. Harver was
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: a great place to sort of make that point, because
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: you know, if you didn't have tugboats. Then those containers
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: with all those goods and services are essentially useless.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Right, I said float, by the way, but gloat works
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: even better.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Oh you said float.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they were gloating while we floating. Okay, so there
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: were some things that changed, stuff you would not at
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: all connect to why tugboats became less vital over the year.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Still incredibly important, and you can make a case that
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: world shipping would essentially just stop if tugboats stopped. So
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: they're really important, but just not in exactly the same
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: ways as they were before. Because we started getting our
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: energy over things like pipelines, We started using things that
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: weren't coal. Trucking and shipping containers became a much bigger
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: thing than say, barges over the years. So with each
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: of those things, the tugboat became less and less able
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: to do what it did in nineteen forty six. And
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: yet it's still so vital that you just can't do
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: anything without them.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, you know they've got they've got electric tugs. Now.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: I saw that there's one called the Ewolf.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it's good looking tug. I mean it's interesting.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: I never really thought about electric boats, but that's becoming
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: more and more of a thing, which is kind of awesome.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: It is awesome, and let's talk about why. Here's why, Chuck.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Remember we said that these things generate crazy amounts of horsepower. Yes,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: some harbor tugs or ocean going tugs generate twenty seven
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: thousand plus horse power. Yeah, it's like having twenty seven
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: thousand horses just running at the back of this thing,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: like kicking their legs all at once, right. Yeah, And
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: to do that, you use a lot of fuel, a
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: ton of diesel fuel. Some of these boats can carry
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: way more than they need in a day, like thirty
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: thousand gallons of diesel. But I saw that the average
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: harbor tug, which is working almost constantly, will use about
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: three thousand gallons of diesel fuel a day. And that
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: is a lot of fuel to use, right, So it's
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: using this non renewable resource. It's also putting out crazy
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: amounts of diesel emissions. Yeah, and that's just one tug
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: boat using three thousand gallons of diesel a day.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: The reason also, I was like, why do they carry
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: so much more than they need, because doesn't that make
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: the tugboat heavier? And therefore you have to use more
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: fuel to get more horsepower out of it. And the
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: reason that I came up with that I found was
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: that time is of such value in a harbor at
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: a port that it's more costly to stop what you're
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: doing and go refuel than it is to carry around
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: all that extra fuel. They have those capacities so that
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: they have they take way longer in between refuelings. That's
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: the point. That's how crazy important time as imports.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I get it, you know, especially in a place
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: like New York. Carver very busy, very busy.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: So you talked about that's the motto over the entrance down.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: To the dock. It says that what also you need
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: to be as maneuverable because it's very busy, very busy.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: And you mentioned that a little bit earlier on that
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: they need to be able to move really in any direction,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: very accurately and as quickly as possible. And the asthma
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: thruster was a big change in that because that is
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: a imagine a propeller inside a housing sort of like
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: a you know, sort of like an e fan or
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: something like that, and it can just turn. That's exactly
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: what it looks like. Last thing I never.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Thought that, but it can.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: It can turn three hundred and sixty degrees. So it's
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: not a fixed propeller and a rudder for steering, and
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: it's not even a non fixed propeller that can move
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: left and right as a propeller that can spin in
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: any direction, which means you got one of those little
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: joystick controllers as a tugboat pilot, and you can inch
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: that thing in the most minute little ways with just
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: a flick of the stick.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, isn't that amazing?
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Pretty cool?
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: I also read about something called a tractor tug which
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: has basically two outboard motors like those two side paddle wheels,
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: and so you can move them independently. And they have
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: a lot of power too, just not as much as
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: the asthmuth I think, but they they're controlled by two joysticks.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: So it's hard enough just think about using one. Imagine
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: using two to move a tugboat around like a huge
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: ship that you're trying not to knock into other ships.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: It's just I can't It's got to be one of
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: the more stressful jobs around piling a tugboat, right, I
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: bet well, I have to ask Thomas.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we did mention a lot. I mean, we've talked
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: a lot about moving boats around. That's obviously what you
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: think of when you think of a tugboat, but they
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: do a bunch of other stuff too, salvage operations, s
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: and R or SAR or search and rescue ops that
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: we've talked a lot about on the show. If there's
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: ever a you know, if there's a busy canal that's
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: blocked or something, or a ship that has gone offline,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: say that that is gumming up the works, You're gonna
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: send a tugboat in there to get those things out
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: of there.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: So we Yeah, we talked about that. The ship that
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: ever given which blocked the Suez Canal for I think weeks,
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: which is a huge dent in global shipping, right. We
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: talked about that in detail, and I could not, for
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: the life of me, remember what episode that was in.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Do you what's it in? Do we do one on
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: the Suez Canal or just.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: The I looked if we did, we didn't name.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: It that which canal? Do we do what episode on?
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: I don't remember doing any canal episode.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Oh we did something canals, right, don't it seems very
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: familiar to me?
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: I think we just earlier talking about Donkey Path and stuff.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Did our Canal episode?
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Hmm, wait, guess possible.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: We might have done one that included like the Panama
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: Canal and maybe yes, I'll bet it was in the
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: Panama Canal episode. I think we did that one. Yeah,
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: we did Panama Canal. Okay, there you go, true and
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: love can we did a little different. But yeah. Also,
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: by the way, the Navy just unveiled the whole new
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: group of search and rescue ships. They're they're called Navajo
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: class tug boats and they're pretty cool.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Looking, all right, what else firefighting tugboats? Of course?
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're called Fife's cute either Fifi or five Fi.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: I've only seen it spelled out.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: I bet it's Fife. Five five would be weird.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Fife is not weird. And the the see.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: It's well, I don't know, Captain, I don't have my
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: sea legs, but Fifi is at least a cute See
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: name five Fi is nothing.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Let's try this out, r Look at that five Fi.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Look at that Fifi. I think five Fi wins the day.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, right, so ice icebreakers and I don't mean at
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: office parties either.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Right, A tugboat just goes in between two people struggling
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: to find something to talk about, and now all of
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: a sudden they can talk about the tugboat that just
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: went in between them.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he goes up to uh and says, if you
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: could invite anyone from history to dinner, who would it be?
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: Okay, I hate this question so much.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: It's the worst.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: There's also anchor handling. There's actually special tugboats called anchor
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: handling tugs appropriately enough. Yeah, and the anchors they're talking
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: about are oil platform tankers, and these are ocean going tugs,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: the ones that carry one hundred thousand gallons of diesel
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: fuel because they're out to see for indefinite periods of time.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: And the anchors that they're pulling around are massive. They're
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: like keeping oil rigs out in the open ocean from
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: floating away. So obviously they're really big anchors. But it's
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: hard to get across how big they are unless you
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: go look up photos of them. Try to find a
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: photo of a human being standing or working near an
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: oil rig anchor, and it'll really kind of drive home
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: what these tugs are pulling around. Makes it even more impressive.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: All Right, I'm going to look that up and tell
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: you what I think before the end of the episode. Okay,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: good line handling too. Like these tow ropes, if they're like, hey,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: we need to get this tow rope out to that ship,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: you don't just throw it on a guy's shoulder. Like
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: these ropes, like those anchors are the most massive thing
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: ropes you've ever seen in your life. Yeah, and so
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: there's Thomas saying, just throw it on guys. I got it,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: I'll take it out there.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I was reading an LA Times article about remember
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: the shipping shut down, the cargo container backup in La
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: and Long Beach at the pandemic that just killed everything.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: The writer went out on a tugboat and was just
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: kind of chronicling like a morning and the life of
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: this tugboat. And they were talking about how recently some
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: two deckhands, one had been injured and one had been
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: killed by a line tightening and pressing them up against
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: the side of the tugboat. So oh like jaws, yeah exactly,
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: but kill them.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So it was a I mean you can just imagine,
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: like this is a three inch thick rope that just
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: suddenly is you know, thousands of killing Newton's pressing you
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: against a metal, a big piece of metal, which is
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: the inside of the ship. It's not the place that
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: you want to be. So it is being in deckhand,
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: which is one of the jobs on the tugboat, is
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: very dangerous and as we'll see, kind of the job
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: you want to work your way up out of.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: I think, yeah, you've also got engineers who you know,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: they take care of those engines, they take care of
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: all the getting things online, mechanical systems, electrical systems. You
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: have your mate, your second and in command and secondary pilot,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: and then you got that cap'n the primary pilot that's
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: running that ship. If you work in let's just pick
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: out New York City, because people think about tugboats a
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: lot there in New York. Carver work, Yeah, everyone does.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, I took a pole. Okay.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: They work two weeks shifts, two weeks on, two weeks off.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: You live on that boat full time. And then on
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: those days that you work, you work two six hour shifts,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: six hours working six hours off, six hours working six
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: hours off. And that is I'm sure Thomas would would
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: verify that this is tough, hard work.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: That is too short. I mean you're like, oh, six
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: hour shift, that's not bad, but then you have to
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: eat and sleep in the next six hours. That's yeah.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: I don't know why they do it like that. It
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: seems like you would wear your crew out really fast
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: with that schedule.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: Would you have them work twelve hours straight and then
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: twelve hours off?
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: No, I think even eight hours. That extra two hours
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: to unwind and eat and then get six hours sleep
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: is adequate because I mean, seriously, you think about it,
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: You're like, you're not doing six hours off and then
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: you just fall over and sleep where you were just
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: standing while you were working. Now that you're off the clock,
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: you're gonna like unwind, you gotta eat, you're gonna just
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: do whatever, shaved, shower, and then you're gonna get what
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: three and a half four hours sleep if you're lucky,
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: maybe five. I think that's a little whack, as.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: They say, yeah, it's whack, But I think it's one
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: of those things with shift work, like you get used
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: to sleeping all day and working at night. Those people
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: probably get used to sleeping in two four hour sets.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and I'm sure they're significant like, oh
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: you're awake again, huh.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But then they're at home for two weeks straight.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: That's what I mean.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Jeez, can you get back to work?
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know, man, it's a hard life. I'm sure
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: Commas can tell us.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, for sure. There are push boats. Uh these
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: are pretty fun. A push tug that's a towboat that
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: has a squared off front at the bow and these
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: padded beams called push knees, and you basically push those
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: knees against the stern and uh you even lash it
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: together sometimes and that you're just pushing pushing something around.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, one's fine. But I like the articulated tug
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: barge or atb This is it's an improved version of this. Right,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: So the barge and the tugboat have like a notch
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: and a corresponding like pointy part. You put them together
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: and put a pin through the two, and now you've
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: got like one single machine. But the tugboat can still
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: maneuver like fishtail and move that barge and all sorts
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: of crazy hard angles, right, And I was like, why
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: don't you just mechanize or motorize the barge? And apparently
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: they use this mostly for oil tank oil shipping, and
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: you just get more oil out of it. And the
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: barges are cheaper because they don't have any self propulsion,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of like a shipping container in a truck,
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Like the tractor is different than the trailer, and so
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: you can hook all sorts of different trailers up to
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: the same tractor time and time again, rather than just
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: you know, having to pilot that trailer all the time.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: It made more sense to me when I was researching
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: it than it is now that I'm explaining it.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Well, it does sort of lend itself to the question
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: of like, why don't these huge barges have a little
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: secondary Asthmuth propeller system that can be deployed.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the expense that added expense. I think
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: they're cheaper because it's just a barge that is just
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: basically a floating container that a tug can hook onto.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: The well maybe so. And the other thing that I
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: also regret not investigating now is how the finances of
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: this work. Is it a tugboat company that just says,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: all right, we're going to contract with this barge company
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: for a certain set of time, yes, and we'll just
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: handle all your tugging and pushing needs. Basically, in this harbor,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: So I.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: Think it kind of from what I understand, it bears
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: a bit of a resemblance to like the shipping like
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: trucking industry, where somebody needs a toe or an escort
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: or something like that in or out of the harbor,
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: and you just contract with somebody. Then I don't know
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: if like you contract with one specific shipping company or
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: you just kind of go back and forth depending on
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: who needs what when, or it's a mixture of both.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure, but I know that back in the day,
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: they it used to be whoever got there first, So
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: as a ship was coming in, topboats would race out
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: to meet them, and whoever got there first had that
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: contract right there because they were the first ones on
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: the scene and they were the ones who were going
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: to pull the ship into its berth.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Surely it's an all inclusive thing, though, and it's not
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: just like, oh, you need to get over there five
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: hundred bucks, right, you know?
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I don't think it's like that for sure.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: But I read another article. The AP did an article
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: on the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore. But
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: last year, earlier this year, you remember when that ship
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: ran into the bridge and the bridge collapsed.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, of course.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: So the there was like heavy criticism because that ship
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: wasn't being escorted by a tugboat, and everybody's like, where
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: was the tugboat? Why was this allowed to happen? And
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: the ap was explaining, that's just not how it works.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: Like the tugboat pulls the ship out of its berth
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: and kind of gets it on its way, and then
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: it goes back and attaches to another ship, and then
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: that ship has to find its way out of harbor,
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: including navigating under and next two bridges and other stuff. Right,
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: And the reason why is money. It costs an extra
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: ten grand to pay a tugboat to pull you safely
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: out into a harbor so you can make way. And
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: the shipping industry holds the cards now, because if you
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: start charging more at a port, or you start, say
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: requiring ships to have a tugboat all the way out
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: into the harbor, it's going to cost more money. And
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: if another port nearby doesn't force you to do that,
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: it's going to be less and so everybody's going to
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: go to that port and all of your dock workers
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: are going to lose their jobs and you're not going
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: to get reelected as mayor Baltimore. You see what I'm saying. Wow. Yeah,
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: it's crazy how weirdly entrenched it is. And again, it's
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: just so discouraging. It seems like every episode we talk
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: about you can trace it back to some group of
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: people who are cutting corners because of money, and then
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: something bad happens and nobody does anything about it. I'm
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: so sick of it.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds like a new episode of The Wire too,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: it does.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, I'm a right now. Let me just apologize
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: to Thomas. Sorry, Thomas.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: If you want to pick up your spirits, my friend,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: go to New York City and take a ride on
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: the Wo Decker because that's one of the funding fun
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: things you can do in New York. I have not
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: done it yet, but I'm going to make a point
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: to go to the South Street Seaport Museum in New York,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: where you can actually take a ride on the classic
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: and beautiful Wo Decker tug.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Yep, pretty neat.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: There's some other stuff you can do too, but that's
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: probably the best.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, good, I'd like to do the best thing.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: Good. Uh, you got anything more on tugboats, Charles.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: I got nothing. I just love these pictures. There's something
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: about a tugboat. I like the way they look. Yeah,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: it was tires hanging off of them, and they're just
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: there's something about the utilitarian aspect. And especially that wo
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: decker with that big old nose on the front. I
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: don't even know what that is. That's the beard, right, yeah,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: but it's it's not a beard that I've ever seen.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: It really looks like a beard.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: I was reading like a kid's maritime museum website about tugboats,
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: and they were trying to explain why everyone loves tugboats,
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: because you're it's true, like there's nobody who doesn't like tugboats,
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: especially if you have nothing to do with the industry, right,
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: you're just watching them from afar, And they explain that
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: they're very powerful and they're small, but they're also very helpful,
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: and I think they kind of nailed it on the head.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Actually, some of these beers are very beardy.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: So I get it, Okay, So Chuck gets it, and
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: he mentioned beards twice in quick succession, which of course
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: unlocks listener nail.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: That's right, And it also conjures Beetlebeard. What sorry? You
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: know you say beatlejuw three times?
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: Oh gotcha? I gotcha, Yeah, I got it.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: I saw that sequel last night.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: What do you think?
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: Did you see it?
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: You know, I enjoyed it. I thought it was fun.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: It's not some great movie. But none of Tim Burton's
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: movies are great to me.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: But I don't know about that.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think Edward was great, but I think
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: that's his only truly great film. What I mean, tell
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: me another.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: Edward scisor Hands, Sleepy Hollow.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: I enjoyed Edward Scissorhands. I don't think it's great. Sleepy
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Hollow I thought was mid at best.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: He's kind a whole I disagree. Sleepy Hall is one
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: of my all time favorite movies. That's one of those
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: ones I can watch like any time.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, hey, I like it. I like most of his movies,
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: but I just don't think they're great films.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: I understand what you're saying. I mean, the nineteen ninety
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: Batman not the best. I would say that that's not
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: a great movie too, for sure.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, But I mean I like most of his movies.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: I understand what it says.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Fair enough, yeah, yeah, anyway, I thought it was.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: I thought it was good.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: It was fun, It was good enough for what I
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: wanted out of it, which was a bit of nostalgia.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: And I loled quite a few times because I just
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: think Michael Keaton is really funny and Catherine O'Hara is
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: really funny.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think Catherine O'Hare did great.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know it was it was.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: Just Okay, I keep forgetting to recommend a movie to
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: you that I I'll see it and remember how great
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: it was, and then I forget to tell you about
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: it again. It's called a Dark Song, okay. It's about
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: a woman who seeks revenge, so she finds an occultist
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: to help her conjure demons to enact revenge.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: How do you find movies that no one else has
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: ever heard?
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: I don't know how I found that one. I really
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: don't remember, but it's on Amazon Prime if I'm not mistaken.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: And it sounds like a hokey premise, but the research
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: that the writers did is so like dead on that
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: it's entirely possible. There's people out there who believe that
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: you can do this exact thing that they're doing, and
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: conjure this exact demon. It's nuts. It's really it's really
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: a good movie. It's pretty rough. I would not watch
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: it with the kids, but it's a it's a very
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: good art house horror film.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Well. Ruby Whent is Megan for Halloween, so she's pretty
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: into that stuff. But this sounds too dark.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: It's a little there's a part in there that she
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: should not see.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, And I'll also say this, I just looked up
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: a dark song really quickly, and there's a Reddit thread
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: a dark song is it real? So apparently it's pretty convinced.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: It is very convincing.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: All right, So that's been movie minutes.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: Yep. Did you ever read the listener?
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Mal no, man, I'm waiting on the queue.
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: I said that you said you said something in quick secession,
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: and you unlocked listener meal Jerry already ran the chime.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: I got a sidetracked. Hey, buddy, I don't jump unless
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: you tell me too.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: So I did tell you, and you didn't jump, and
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: everything broke down as if the tugboats stopped tugging.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Oh that means another lashing tonight.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna last you to the tugboats.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Uh yeah, put me up there. With the beard. All right, Hey, guys,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: love the show, especially the unsolved mystery episodes. Needless to say,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: I loved the one a couple of months ago about
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: the mysteries of the Internet and the mysterious song that
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: caught my attention.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: Oh I know where this one's going.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Boy. They came pouring in and I have to say,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: the mystery seems to have been solved about the most
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: mysterious song on the Internet. It is not the one
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: that people sent in right after we published. That was
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: not even the same song. Those people were lazy, uh,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it broke and we've gotten like a hundred
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: emails that that artist has been identified. There's a reddit thread.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: It's a Reddit user tracked it down. The song is
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: called Subways of Your Mind by the group. I don't
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: know if it's fex or fex, not sure how they
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: pronounce it. The user found the band from an old
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: newspaper article in the NordWest Zeitung archive. While they were
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: researching houterfests bands bands performed. That music festival was a
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: lead the subreddit was working on. The article they found
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: was about a band called Fix from Keel who won
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: a talent contest in Bremen, September nineteen eighty four. Their
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: music was described as rock with wave and pop influences
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: in tracks. The user managed to get in touch with
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: a member of the band and they produced original tapes
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: of the recorded song to prove they were the ones
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: who recorded Wow. I read through the subreddit. They said,
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: wait a minute before you go wide with this, because
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: I want to talk to the rest of the band.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: First came back and said, I talked to the rest
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: of the band. They're into it and we want to
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: like re record it and you know, get back together
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: and re record this thing now that it's got some fame.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're gonna do an acoustic country version.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: Uh, this is for Michael, but big thanks to everybody
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: who wrote in because it's pretty exciting, you know. Somerton
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: Man was found on our watch.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: On our watch, right, thanks to us.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Thanks to us, and this was solved on our watch.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: So as the longer we do the show, the more
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: these mysteries are kind of you know, maybe they'll find
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: that that guy who disappeared from the airport. Remember that guy.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that poor kid from Yeah, I don't remember.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: What island is Swedish or something.
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a sad story.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we're hoping to clear up all these mysteries.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: But yeah, the mysterious song has been solved.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: Great and it was fects subways of your mind? And
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: who wrote in? Because I mean a million people wrote in.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: I don't think we've ever got more more email about
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: the same thing in less time than on this one.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: It was astounding. It was like, yeah, those post so
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: office workers come in at the end of Miracle on
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: thirty fourth Street and start dumping Santa letters down to
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: the judge's bench. It was like that, but with emails
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: about the most mysterious song on the Internet.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's gonna get worse because this isn't gonna
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: come out because we're front loading for Christmas break and
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: so like we're going to be getting these emails.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: For a while. Oh dude, we'll be ginning them for years. Chuck,
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: we got an email from somebody this week and the
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: subject time was Chuck predicted shark Nato Right. That is
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: an old, old.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: Classic, Oh man, but all they hear about Jared from
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: Subway and Hugh Jackman Jackman playing pt Bond.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: Who is it the greatest show min yet?
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Anyway? That was for Michael.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Michael, very much appreciated. Thanks to everybody
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: who wrote in. We don't mean to sound ungrateful. We're
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: just joshing around.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we love YEP.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah. Keep us informed as best you can
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: all the time. And since I said that you want
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: to be like Michael, I should tell you that you
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: can send us an email. Send it off to stuff
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.