Page 34: of Marine News Magazine (June 2006)

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34 • MarineNews • June 2006

By Don Sutherland

One of the things they say these days that the hawsepiper — the man who start- ed on deck, learned the boat in detail, and made his way up to the pilot house — that he's a creature of the past. Today's tugboat is crammed full of diplomas, they say, some of them able to trump 20 years. So another one of the things they say is that

Chris Roehrig is the last hawsepiper. Or one of the last.

Or one of the most conspicuous.

There are more boats of Roehrig Mar- itime — eight at this writing — at more locations further from home than ever before. One reason why is that the skip- per promoted himself, and went from the pilot house to the office. The Roehrig

Maritime fleet has more than doubled in number in the years since, and besides, gone way up per unit in power, size, and capacity. The John H. Malik, joining the fleet at the start of this year, is the second at 6,000 hp with CR on the stacks, fol- lowing the Anabelle V. Roehrig a couple years before. In between came the Heidi, at 3,300 hp. "I steer a desk these days," says Capt.

Roehrig, who started the enterprise dri- ving the Tilly, a single-screw DPC. The company enters its seventeenth year in

August, and from the desk he drives,

Capt. Roehrig comments that there is no spot market for 6,000 hp tugboats. A 130- footer is not the sort of thing folks can have sitting around for a moment's notice.

But cut a man a contract, he can come up with a tug for the job.

As the Tides Go

Go back enough in history, and the spot market is what tugboating's about. At one time, they say, it took you offshore to hag- gle with clippers once they finally arrived,

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Tugboats

Beyond the House

Tilly

Tilly dockside, 2002. WWII's DPCs once numbered 100, and when

Tilly started Roehrig Marine in 1991 there were still quite a few.

Today Tilly's one of very few, as a liveaboard in the South. (Photo:

Don Sutherland)

Vivian Roehrig

The hard-working Vivian on her day off in 2002, coming home chock full of guests from the Tug Races that afternoon. (Photo: Don

Sutherland)

Brandon Roehrig

Most of the Roehrig fleet as it looked one evening in 2001, the Bran- don and Emma off elsewhere. Opposite is Penn's Tarpon, on its side of the Penn yard. (Photo: Don Sutherland)

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