Page 73: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (September 1998)

lie Towing Chugs Ahead With Diversity Perseverance olle family has been operating tugs on the Mississippi River since 1878, but they are not content to just rest on their historic laurels. 1878, Captain H. Colle ght the first tug, Fox, to :agoula, Miss, to assist the ng vessels across the bar and the river to load lumber for ort.

Nearly 100 years later, in 1976, tie Towing introduced the first seller tug to the Gulf Coast, abel Colle. Clearly, Colle Towing not a company that has survived

IT 120 years simply by maintain- lg a status quo.

In fact, according to Captain

John Colle, Jr., president, and ;he fourth generation of manage- ment, one of the largest obstacles in the company's history was the death of his grandfather in 1955. "The estate taxes tore us apart," he says. "It bi'oke up the family, near- ly broke up the company.

Things had to be divided between inlaws."

Nevertheless, the com- pany has progressed a long way since Fox, the charcoal, iron hull, steam tug, fired by a wood burn- ing boiler.

Now the company has a fleet of eight vessels, following delivery of

Kimberly Colle from Main

Iron Works, Houma, La., later this month. Vessels include shipdocking tugs, coastwise towing vessels, barge-moving tugs and a few deck barges, mainly leased out as construction type barges.

Over the years, the company has seen several regulations - mainly per- taining to safety They have managed to comply with each. "We are an AWO [American Waterways

Operators] member; we're qualified under the

Responsible Carrier

Program," says Colle. "That program helps us all to be better operators - it focuses on manage- ment, safety onboard the vessel, training - it really addresses the indepth operations of vessel man- agement. Even still, it took us a year-and-a-half to qualify."

As a result, the company upped its attention to training, a niche that Colle readily admits was neglected previously. "I think training is neglected industry-wide," he says. "Most training is OTJ - on the job - that's all anyone ever did before. "But now, we send people to a qualified school, and we hold pro- grams in-house for regular, routine training. We send people to school for a week, and we also hold safety meetings in-house twice a month - they normally last about two hours each."

Future Considerations and the Fleet

In the Gulf of Mexico, shipyards and tug operators are plentiful.

Colle Towing realizes that busi- ness may become more difficult to secure. However, according to

Colle, "we are looking to maintain our current business, and also to expand our company operations into more coastwise towing."

The new vessel, Kimberly Colle, is designed for just that purpose.

Measuring 108 x 34 ft., the ves- sel is the largest in the company's fleet. The 5,600 hp boat features a number of innovative electronics, including Furuno FR-8111 and

Furuno FR-1932 radar equipment;

Robertson AP-45 and Robertson

RGC-11 Gyro autopilot equipment;

Furuno GP-16106 GPS plotter and

Furuno GP-30 GPS equipment; as well as two ICOM ICM-127 VHF and one ICOM ICM-45 VHF radio; one Sea 222 SSB radio and a

Datamarine 3000 depthfinder.

Like the other, larger vessels in the fleet - Janet Colle, 90 x 32 ft.;

Mabel Colle, 85 x 32 ft; and Natalie

Colle, 85 x 32 ft. - Kimberly Colle is installed with EMD 16-645

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September, 1998 55