Page 18: of Marine News Magazine (August 2006)

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By Don Sutherland "Stick lighter?" said the southern gen- tleman, "I haven't heard that term before."

It seemed fair enough. Probably, a good number of northern gentlemen haven't heard that term either, at least not in along time. For sure, a large number of northern gentlemen have never heard the term "lugger tug."

So that makes everyone even, north and south, as far as vocabulary scores are con- cerned. And it demonstrates again that in an industry where so much is now said to be standardized and in conformity and made all quite regular, there remain a few regionalisms as far as lingo is concerned, as well as the design of boats.

From the standpoint of design, as far as the eye can see, the old stick lighter and the modern lugger tug share quite a bit.

Both have their houses well aft, and an expansive foredeck to receive a bodacious amount of cargo which both types of boats would, well, lug from there to here.

Stick lighters came in both unmotorized and self-propelled forms, of course, and only the latter bear a serious resemblance to their southern counterpart of today.

Probably the most obvious difference is that the onboard mast and boom of the stick lighter is absent from the typical lug- ger tug. So maybe we should say the lug- ger tug is comparable to the old self-pro- pelled harbor lighters, subtracting "stick" from the term "lighter."

On closer inspection, the lugger has towing bitts that might not have been so prominent on harbor lighters, adding to "lugger" to the term "tug."

Less obvious but more significant from the standpoint of hull design is the depth of lighters and luggers, respectively.

Northern lighters might have had keels acting like skegs a bit, against the forces 18 • MarineNews • August, 2006

The triple-screw George C., with its aft towing bitt practically touching the deckhouse. Brown

Water V, in from Texas, passes by, representing a southern-developed style now seen far outside the south. (Photo: Don Sutherland.)

Louisiana Lugger Tugs

As a conventional tugboat would, the George C. helps maneuver Donjon's 1000-ton Chesapeake 1000 around some of the tight bends at Venice last October. At the head of the tow is Donjon's Atlantic Salvor, which came down from New York for the effort. (Photo: Don Sutherland.)

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