Nothing to do with caching, but had to post!

[arfferParticipant]

Check out this web site, this is incredible! http://koti.mbnet.fi/~soldier/towboat.htm

[GLSailorMember]

Here’s a followup to the photos

It was either late 1978 or early 1979, I have forgotten exactly, but anyway,
I am close on either… The river is the Tombigbee River and this happened
to be the record high water ever for that area. The towboat you see coming
down on the bridge is the Motor Vessel Cahaba owned by Warrior Gulf
Navigation out of Mobile, Alabama. Warrior Gulf is a subsidiary of
Pittsburg Steel. I know you are familiar with Birmingham’s coal mines and
steel mills, and this company would haul iron pellets up to Birmingport and
off-load to make steel plate. On the return the barges were filled with
coal for export at the McDuffie Coal Terminal at the mouth of the Mobile
River and at the head of Mobile Bay.
The Bridge was the Old Rooster Bridge (since demolished and removed – I saw
the explosion to tear it down also) located below Demopolis, Alabama. The
land-side highway dead ends at the bluff, and you can still drive to this
site and imagine how high the river had to be to get to the bottom of the
bridge…
The pass or Channel Span of the bridge was located on the far West side of
the river, or on the opposite bank from the photographer’s standpoint. In
normal river flow, we would drop down near the rock bluff and steer through
the opening to pass southward with our tows of coal barges. Normal loads
were six barges, each measuring 195′ X 35′ and loaded to a 10′ draft. This
allowed each barge to carry approximately 2,000 tons of coal (times six =
12,000 tons X 2000 pounds = 24 Million pounds of cargo.) The boat is 1800
Horsepower twin engine diesel built in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. It is named
after one of the eight “friendly” Indian tribes. It is the Motor Vessel
Cahaba. At the “sticks” or helm is Captain Jimmie Wilkerson, a long time
river pilot and was my personal friend – since deceased.
The river current was so very treacherous that we were forced to drop down
to the bridge in the slack(er) water on the left descending bank and when we
got down to the bridge, we uncoupled the boat from the barges and let the
barges drift down under the bridge. The bottom of the bridge would “shave”
the coal stacked in the barges off to a level surface. The next step was
to back the vessel upriver and then go over to the far West side and
traverse the bridge’s channel span with the boat, and run down and catch the
barges. It was just too dangerous to try to bring the barges through the
bridge span in the current.
Anyway, Jimmie dropped down properly and with the entire rest of the crew
standing on the barges for safety, he began to reverse his engines to back
away. His stern would have to be kept directly pointed into the current or
the boat would travel sideways like a kite without it’s tail. Captain Jim
was a fine pilot, but he made a small mistake and his stern was caught in
the current, twisted sideways and the river smashed him into the bridge
sideways. Notice that the boat re-surfaced right side up on the down stream
side. What luck you say? Nope, WGN ballasted all their vessels with three
to four feet of cement in the bottom. The boat was like a little yellow
rubber duckie, and came back up like a duckie oughta do. The boat
suffered major cosmetic damages, but little flooding because of water tight
doors, except in the pilothouse. Notice the picture where the boat is not
quite righted and you can see water pouring out of the wheelhouse door. The
chair washes out, and Jimmie told me he was holding on to the controls with
all his might to keep from going out the drain and into the river.
He was very shook up and you can see him approach the tow of barges
downriver. Well he didn’t get it together quite soon enough and he smashed
into the barges, causing further damage.
I next saw Jimmie about a month after this and we had a cup of coffee
together and talked about the incident. He was smoking a Camel Non-filter
but didn’t even need an ashtray beacuse his hands were still shaking too
much for the ash to build up to any degree.
How do I know all this? I was on the boat that went through the bridge
immediately before the Cahaba. The Motor Vessel James E. Philpott made the
bridge and was headed south at close to 15 MPH. For all you who don’t
understand, that is very fast on a commercial towboat with that much
tonnage.
Glad to pass this on to everybody…
Captain Michael L. Smith

[arfferParticipant]

Thanks GLSailor!

I found this on another thread, its supposidly from the photographer:
#####################################

The photographer, Ray Fagan wrote:

Would you believe that there are two versions of what happened? Both by
crew members??? The first “official” reason is that a face wire from the
starboard push knee got tangled (or whatever) and helped pull the boat with
it under the edge of the bridge. When the cable broke (came loose, etc.)
the boat popped up and was jammed by that starboard push knee. The current
did the rest.

The other “official” version is that a face wire somehow got into the port
wheel before the boat ever got to the bridge. With only one propeller to
operate with, the boat couldn’t stop or back against the current. Again,
the current did the rest.

Remember that this happened at the highest water level ever recorded on the
Warrior River. BTW: the bridge was open.

We should have our new site up in a few days with the entire story including
pictures of most of the major players (bridge tender, captain,
photographer). For now, any other site you see the pictures on have stolen
my original site without my consent. I have been in touch with the owner of
the pictures and should have copyright approval shortly.

Thanks,
Ray Fagan

[kbrabandParticipant]

Thanks, GLSailor. Very interesting reading.

[ThraxmanParticipant]

That IS quite impressive, but it is actually a standard manuever. When I was in the Navy, my captain loved to pull this one to impress the natives in smaller countries. You would not believe the amount of preparation involved!

Our ship was about 500 feet long, so it is a little trickier than just drifting a tug through. It worked best with half of a fuel load, because the day before the stunt we could transfer all fuel on board to storage tanks on one side of the ship, and with additional help from the ballast tanks on that same side, we would have a 7 or 8 degree list BEFORE we even made contact with the bridge. The electricians would take down all topside antennas to avoid damaging them (which also helped make this trick more convincing… we could pretend we didn’t have radio contact with the bridge controller!). Normally, when we would intentionally capsize the vessel, we would set water-tight integrity to the max level through-out the whole ship, but for this, we found it worked better if we let two or three of the upper decks flood out, which was kind of a bummer, because those were the berthing decks, and that usually meant soggy mattresses

Afer making contact with the bridge, the ship would start our controlled capsize, and by the time we were at about 75 degree list , the starboard shaft and propeller would be out of the water, and this was the fun part… I would have control of that down in the engine room. As soon as I had confirmation from a topside watch that the screw was out of the water, I would give it full throttle, splashing plenty of water to the shores, soaking befuddled on-lookers. It would also leave a really cool pattern of gouges on the bridge itself, kinda my little trademark

Each time we pulled this stunt, the US Navy would save about 50 bucks in draw-bridge fees.

[GLSailorMember]

Man, it’s really gettin’ deep on this thread

[kbrabandParticipant]

quote:

---

Originally posted by GLSailor:
Here’s a followup to the photos

and when we
got down to the bridge, we uncoupled the boat from the barges and let the
barges drift down under the bridge. The bottom of the bridge would “shave”
the coal stacked in the barges off to a level surface. The next step was
to back the vessel upriver and then go over to the far West side and
traverse the bridge’s channel span with the boat, and run down and catch the
barges. It was just too dangerous to try to bring the barges through the
bridge span in the current.

---

Michael, just a couple of things I’m curious about from your story. 1. If the river was at a record high flood level, why were they running on it that day? Seems way too risky. 2. Wasn’t it doubly dangerous to release the barges with crew on them, especially during flood conditions?
Just wondering.

[This message has been edited by kbraband (edited March 02, 2002).]

[GLSailorMember]

Hi Ken,

A couple of “observations” about barges and tows that I have seen over the years (I spent 10 years sailing on the Mississippi in St. Louis)

1. Towboat operators rarely stop for anything, high water, floods, anything. As you can imagine, the experienced captains have seen just about everything and know how to deal with it, high water in particular. Unless the Corps of Engineers or the Coast Guard specifically prohibits them from operating, the’re out there – same thing on the Great Lakes – storm warnings don’t mean a thing to those guys. If they do have to release the barges, they will publish a “PAN” signal informing others that their barges are loose (and assuming that the towboat is going to pick them up shortly)

2. Releasing the barges is a also a pretty common practice if the towboat is having difficulty. Not at all uncommon to see barges adrift, stuck on an island or actually moored to some spit of land so the towboat can do something else. A bit unusual to leave the crew on the barge, but again, not uncommon. Remember, it’s just a raft floating down the river with no power of its own while the towboat has a LOT of power to go up/downstream fully loaded (even though at full flood, it’s a lot of mass moving a good speed – dangerous – but it’s entirely the captains decision and wishes.)

Imagine the power necessary to push xxx tons of barge up the river against a 3-5-7 knot current!! The wash generated by the towboats can affect a sailboat as much as 100-200′ behind the towboat (as can the wash generated by a Lakes freighter as well – they are now up to the 1000′ foot size, limited only by the size of the locks at Soo Ste. Marie going into Lake Superior (smallest locks on the St. Lawrence Seaway, I think))

The locks on the Mississippe are supposed to control flooding on the river (as if man can actually control Mother Nature…) and they have actually made the situation worse by NOT giving the river anyplace to go when the river floods. There was HUGE argument after the ’93 flood about the Corpse of Engineers (sic) and the miserable job they had done “managing” the river and the argument rages today. The Corps has built so many levees to protect towns, etc., that when the river does swell, there is absolutely no place for the water to go except over the levees. All of the natural overflow areas had been dammed up and its worse the farther south you go on the Mississippi.

Sorry to get on my soapbox, but I’ve gotten a little frustrated about the machinations of the “corps” over the years. Hope this helps…

Mike

[Team Roman GeoskisMember]

These are the most amazing pictures I have
ever seen. I spent 21 years in the Navy
(retired in 94) and have seen sea captains
do some amazing things, but nothing like this! Took a 45 degree roll during a sub-tropical typhoon in the Bearing Sea in 50 foot seas serving on a 563 foot long destroyer and was sure we were dead. My hat’s off to the brown water sailors, I know I wouldn’t want to lay my ship on it’s side to get under a bridge. Thanks for the great photos!

[kbrabandParticipant]

quote:

---

Originally posted by GLSailor:

The locks on the Mississippe are supposed to control flooding on the river (as if man can actually control Mother Nature…) and they have actually made the situation worse by NOT giving the river anyplace to go when the river floods.

---

Mike, thanks for the additional information. You certainly have a lot more experience and knowledge of the river than I do (I have done some boating on the Mississippi, and have enjoyed “upping” my boating skills to go through the locks). However, I do know the Army Corps of Engineers states that the locks and dams were not built for flood control. The information they publish says the dams and locks are strictly to maintain a navigation channel for river traffic. As I say, I’m no expert, but that’s what the Corps says.

[Author]

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