Page 64: of Marine News Magazine (November 2011)

64MNNovember 2011Born Reliable Smith Maritime sticks to principles inrepowering tugboats with Mitsubishi marine engines.If one were to focus on certain aspects of the story of Captain Latham Smith, it would be easy to get the wrong impression. After all, this is a man who has actively sought out towing, salvage and rescue jobs all over the world specifically because of the danger they posed. Focusing on those details alone, and he sounds like a thrill seeker. In actuality, there?s much, much more to the story. Having devoted more than 50 years to the marine industry, including the last 43 as the owner of Smith Maritime, Smith has developed a reputation as a brilliant tactician and innovative boat designer. Just eleven years old when he built his first boat; Smith assembled a kayak using materials from a knocked down kitchen wall and canvas from a military surplus store. More than 15 years later, Smith was still on or around the water every day, working on tugboats and in shipyards to make a living. Eventually, the city of Miami was in the midst of a large urban renewal project that included demolishing several old warehouses and oil tanks. Smith seized the chance to recycle scrap steel from the demoli- tion, and he set about building his own tugboat. ?When I got started on the boat, I had some tools in a truck and 25 dollars,? said Smith. ?I paid for the con- struction by doing ship maintenance and building parts for customers.? Some helping hands chipped in, but by and large the building of the 65-foot tugboat hadLatham?s fingerprints all over it, from design to comple- tion. The boat, named Elsbeth, was ready to hit the ocean in 1968, and Smith Maritime was founded. In the beginning, Smith did a lot of one-off projects and roamed the world. Smith explains, ?My boat was my house and I carried it around with me like a turtle. Everything I owned was on the boat.? Gradually, Smith Maritime settled into some regular contracts and offered a wide gamut of services, including ocean and coastal tow- ing, pipe and cable laying, cargo and dredging operations, harbor and buoy handling, and ? Smith?s favorite, of course ? salvage and rescue. Today, Smith operates a der- rick barge and three additional tugboats, all hand-built by Smith; the Elsbeth II (1987), Elsbeth III (1998) and Rhea (2002). The sisters have seen plenty of action over the years, primarily in the Americas but also traveling as far as Canada, Africa and many other points all around the globe. Interestingly, and while the Elsbeth still operates with its original engines, it is Smith?s far newer tugboats that have had to be recently repowered. The 110-foot Elsbeth II experienced a failure with one of its three orig- inal engines in 2006. Replacing it with a new engine from the original manufacturer was found to be expensive and impractical, and a repair was out of the question. Smith Latham Smith of Smith MaritimeMN#11 (50-65):MN 2011 Layouts 10/28/2011 10:38 AM Page 64