Page 9: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (September 15, 1981)

The night Crowley tied the American knot-

George Talbot, American's West Coast sales manager, remembers it well. One of our best customers, Crowley Maritime, called early one afternoon with a big problem.

There was a barge on the beach off Moclips,

Washington, and Crowley needed two miles of 9" polypropylene rope fast— by 6:00 AM the next day, less than 18 hours away.

They had to have polypropylene.

Salvage tugs could only get within ^ two miles of the beach, so the * ^ rope had to be light enough ^ttKM^ for a helicopter to pull it jml^^^t from the beach to the m^^m .. Z tug. Crowley barge refloated quickly and the next high tide dictated the timing.

The problem George faced was this: no one supplier or warehouse ever stocks two miles of 9" rope. That, by the way, is 18 54-inch reels weighing in at about 14,000 pounds. Well, he got half of it together by commandeering every available inch of rope in San Francisco — and finally the other half by scouring every available source in Los Angeles. But he still had to get all 14,000 pounds to Portland by 6:00 AM the next day. Back to the telephone. Ware- houses agreed to put in extra hours, special trucks were hired at overtime rates, a flight was found to move the L.A. consign- ment to San Francisco.

Then, disaster. The only air- **|| freighter out of San

Francisco ^mm

WFm j^HjgJHp/ was scheduled to leave before the L.A. (Ik , flight arrived, and it was

Hk|| going east rather than north, i^^jg: George hit the phones again. Middle-of-the-night calls finally got the airfreighter di- verted north to Portland, then east. And every last inch of rope was deliv- ered in Portland before the 6:00 AM deadline.

The rest of the story is Crowley's. They had trucks waiting at the airport and trans- ported the rope to the barge location. Vari- ous lengths were tied together with bow- lines, strung from the beach to the barge by helicopter and the cargo was successfully salvaged.

George Talbot is very good at his job.

Just like all the guys at our other 14 Service

Centers. With American, it's the old story: the difficult we do right away, the impos- sible just takes a little longer. [fAIVICOi] MANUFACTURING COMPANY

CORDAGE DIVISION 206 Willow Avenue

Honesdale, PA 18431 717/253-5860 200 Southpark Road

Lafayette, LA 70117 318/837-9241

INDUSTR1H DerraeuDRs

SERVICE CENTERS: BOSTON. CHICAGO. CLEVELAND JACKSONVILLE. LOS ANGELES. NEW ORLEANS EMERYVILLE HOUSTON. PHILADELPHIA. PITTSBURGH ST LOUIS SEATTLE. TAMPA. SAVANNAH

September 15, 1981 Write 114 on Reader Service Card 11