Page 27: of Marine News Magazine (May 2006)

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May, 2006 • MarineNews 27 auspices of the National Lighthouse

Museum, but hardly the first the ex-Mobil 11 would enter.

Capt. De Cruz recalls how the races bolstered the tug's fame. "When Mobil had the boat built, they had an idea about an ocean tug. She was the biggest thing they had then — we called her the Iron

Horse — and she had a lot of power, and she won a lot of races."

The tug's great power helped, but so did certain preparations.. "She'd go to Perth

Amboy at night," said Capt De Cruz, "and they'd put the speed prop on. She'd come out with the fenders up, and she'd leave everyone behind. Mobil would run ads in the magazines showing her victory, and a headline like 'Buy Mobil Lube Oil!'"

That she blew a few heads or pistons in the race was a secondary issue, and did not appear in the ads. "The word we got was, keep that boat running if you have to get on your hands and knees on the dia- mond plate, and pray." After one of the races, Mobil 11 made for Yonkers. "Two tugs from Mobil came up and towed her down at night," Capt. De Cruz recalls. "At night!"

Capt. Vinik didn't risk blowing his recently-fixed engine, probably the exact same one after a few rebuildings that drove Mobil 11 to its victories. But still, in a field of thirteen, Dorothy Elizabeth came in fifth. Not bad for a 54-year-old write-off.

Crowded Waters

The Labor-Day showing produced no ads, except the word-of-mouth about the red-white-and-blue tug that was new again. "We started getting more calls," says Capt. Vinik, "and they started using us more and more. By the end of Decem- ber, we were really busy. It was really encouraging." Then, one day, crossing

Jamaica Bay in 46 feet of water, "we sucked something up in our wheel." Capt.

Vinik is a diver as well as a skipper and went down for a look, and whatever the object was, it was gone. But its handiwork wasn't. "The obstruction caused all the studs holding a saddle to break, so when we went into reverse, the gears didn't align properly."

Where do you get a gearbox for a 54- year-old tugboat? "Fred Kosnac called and said he knew where there were two of them — Falk MB16s. I called the owners, but they weren't for sale — I guess they needed them for parts on their own."

If you don't have a gearbox, you don't have a tugboat. "My broker said it was the first he'd ever heard of declaring one boat a CTL twice."

The promising start and abrupt interrup-

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