Torrent was used as a fireboat in the Baltimore harbor before later working as a tugboat. The city of Baltimore, with its port facilities sprawling around the shores of the Patapsco River, has long relied on a fleet of fireboats to protect valuable waterfront property. The largest vessel to serve the city was the appropriately-named Torrent, which served along with fireboats named Cataract, Deluge, and Cascade.

Built on the hull of a steam tug, Torrent was launched in 1921 and served until 1956 when she was replaced by a modern diesel fireboat. Carl T. Allison, an engineer on the Torrent in the 1930s and 1940s, used his leisure time to build this model of the boat he served aboard. The model was gifted to CBMM by Mildred T. Allison, in memory of Calvin F. Allison.

The model came to the Museum with several parts missing or separated, and CBMM Model Guild member Ed Thieler volunteered to conserve it for the upcoming tugboat exhibit.

The model features not only the five monitors—or nozzles mounted on the main deck, pilot house, aft deck house, and tower, but a grate below the waterline for the water pump intake, discharge gates where hoses can be attached, and other such details.

Although not a scale model—the model is proportionately a little too wide and too deep for its length—many of the technical details are included. This attention to detail is typical of “sailor-made” models, those constructed by a member of a vessel’s crew who knew it intimately.

CBMM’s upcoming Push and Pull: Life on Chesapeake Tugboats exhibit explores the world of Chesapeake tugboats and the men and women who work on them. For more information, call 410-745-2916 or visit www.cbmm.org.

Built in 1912 in Bethel, Delaware by William H. Smith, the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum’s tug Delaware measures 39’8” x 11’4” and is now a floating exhibit at the museum’s waterfront campus.

Delaware is a product of Bethel’s great age of wooden ship and boatbuilding and apart from the 1900 ram schooner Victory Chimes (formerly Edwin and Maud), may be the only survivor. In 1929, the tug was bought by James Ireland of Easton, Maryland, who was in partnership with John H. Bailey in a marine construction business. Later, Bailey acquired sole interest in the tug, when she became a common sight around the Upper Eastern Shore, engaged in building bulkheads and docks until she was laid up in the late 1980s.

Delaware hauled scows on Broad Creek, often laden with lumber, and towed ram schooners to and from Laurel. Occasionally, she carried parties of young people to Sandy Hill for day trips on the Nanticoke River.

Coming up on her centennial birthday, Delaware is getting some much needed attention at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. The museum’s shipwrights are replacing six bottom planks on the port side, all the way forward. That will also allow the shipwrights and apprentices to replace structural floors and frame ends, as well as repair the keel. The planking will all be yellow pine. They are also replacing the lower guards on the hull in the original configuration. The guards are 2- 1/2″ square and 25′ long, and have been steam-bent to the shape of the hull.

Work will also include pulling up some of the side deck and replacing a broken fore- and aft-deck carlin that runs the entire length of the cabin house. And finally, any broken or rotten tongue-and-groove beaded, vertical cabin-siding will be replaced. The custom siding has to be milled on-site. Restoration work will be done over the fall and winter months, in full public view in the museum’s harbor side boat yard.

The museum’s waterfront campus in St. Michaels includes new art and decoy exhibits, the historic restoration of the skipjack Rosie Parks, a floating fleet of historic vessels, a museum store, and many hands-on exhibits sharing the stories of how people live, work, and play along the entire Chesapeake Bay. The museum is open 9am to 5pm seven days a week, with picnickers and dogs welcome. For more information, visit the museum, online at www.cbmm.org, or call 410-745-2916.
 

Tug Delaware

A new major exhibit entitled “Push and Pull: Life on Chesapeake Tugboats,” opens April 21 at
the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum (CBMM) in St. Michaels, MD. The exhibit explores the
world of Chesapeake tugboats and the men and women who work on them. Food, fuel, and all
the stuff of modern life––almost nothing moves on the Chesapeake Bay without tugboats.

The men and women who work on tugs docking ships and moving barges do difficult, sometimes
dangerous work—with unique rules and rhythms. Explore their world through stories, images,
and objects of the Bay’s tugboats, along with the words of the people whose lives are shaped
around them.

The exhibit runs through 2014 and is open during regular museum hours. This special exhibit is
free for CBMM members or with museum admission. For more information, call 410-745-2916
or visit www.cbmm.org.

Thanks!

Step two: Before you begin, collect all the information and photos that you want to include in your boat roster entry and put it someplace you can easily find it. I like to put everything on my desktop. Photos must be .jpegs

Step three: Click on the Enter Boat Record link on the left side of the Boat Roster page. Log in with your RTA username and password. Fill in as much or as little information as you want into the boat record form. Make sure you click on continue at the bottom of the page and then upload your photos.

Step four: To update or add info or images to your Boat Roster entry,  just click the Edit Boat Record link on the left side of the Boat Roster page. It will ask you for your email and access key, enter the info and you will be back in your tugs Enter Boat Record page. If you didn’t save that access key, don’t worry, just click on Resend Access Key and the website will immediately resend your access key.

Tips… If you are including a website link in your boat record, please make sure you put in the entire website address, not just part of it, it won’t work if it doesn’t have the whole address. For example http://retiredtugs.org/ not retiredtugs.org the software needs that http:// to know it’s a web link. The easiest way is open the website in your browser and cut and paste the web address from the browser window into the correct box on the form.

The tug will be auctioned off on January 21st @ 9 AM by Stokes Auction House in Port Orchard. Here’s a link to the auction house website with more info and photos. http://www.stokesauction.com/portboat.htm

RTA Fall Rendezvous

A big thank you to George and Wendy of the tug Parthia for once again hosting a great rendezvous! We all look forward to doing again next year.