Stuff You Should Know - Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803

Episode Date: December 12, 2024

Tugboats are amazing because they do the dirty work without much recognition. Well that's changing today - ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY TUG!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everyone, this is Courtney Thornsmith, Laura Layton and Daphne Zuniga. On July 8th, 1992, apartment buildings with pools were never quite the same as Melrose Place was introduced to the world. We are going to be reliving every hookup, every scandal and every single wig removal together. So listen to Still the Place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hi, I'm Dani Shapiro, host of the hit podcast, Family Secrets.

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Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Toot toot and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too for the present moment and this is Stuff You Should Know. That's right, another listener request. These are just kind of pouring in now. Or rather we're leaning on them more than we have before, I guess. Because they're great ideas, but this one came also from the live show in Atlanta. And do you remember this guy? Do you remember his name? Yes, I do. It was Thomas. Because this episode is Tug Boats for Thomas.

Tug Boats for Thomas. And Thomas, I believe, works on tug boats, suggested it. And this has turned out to be just a bread and butter, stuff you should know, episode. Yeah, I remember when he was at the mic asking the question or making the suggestion, he kept moving around because he still had his sea legs. He's bumping into people. They're like, dude. So yeah, hopefully we'll do Thomas proud because because we know a little bit about tugboats now after researching them for a little while.

Big shout out to our friend Dave Ruse for helping us with this. You could do worse than going to check out Ruse's podcast, Bible Time Machine. And that has nothing to do with tugboats, but let's talk about that. That's right, because we're going to sing the unsung like we like to do on the show, because no one ever thinks about tugboats. You see them all the time. If you live near Harbor or vacation or visit cities that have harbors, you see those tugboats and those big ships and barges

get all the sexy headlines, but those tugboats are doing the yeoman's work. That's why they call them nautical laborers early in their, I guess, mission when they first started coming online on sea. Yeah, so we'll get to that in a minute about the history of tugboats, because it actually goes back way further than you would think, or not as far as you'd think,

depending on what you're thinking. But- 1320? Nope, not that far. 2020. But one of the things that tugboats are that makes them like the workhorses of the sea, as you could put it, is that they have really impressive power to tonnage ratios. Yeah. So the size of the tugboat, the actual weight the tugboat weighs, compared to the amount of power output its engines can create,

usually in horsepower, is really lopsided. So that these fairly comparatively light boats, compared to like the horsepower they create, can pull, pull, pull. And they can push, push, push, and they can do all sorts of amazing stuff, which is why they can move these enormous, huge oil tankers and shipping container ships with just the mighty might of their little hearts. You'd think I would have practiced something like that,

because it would have practiced something like that. It would have been way better. Yeah, I mean, not to undersell tugboats. They are dealing with things that are floating in water, which helps. But these are big, massive things floating in water. Like, you could get in a lake, my friend, and you could pull a rope attached to a pontoon boat. What? And you could pull that thing attached to a pontoon boat. What? And you could pull that thing around a little bit.

You could swim that thing around a little bit because it's floating in water. What universe do you live in? That may be where you max out. You are the tugboat of the lake, Josh, if you can do that to a pontoon boat, because these tugboats are little compared to these huge barges that are floating around.

Is that making any sense at all? It's making too much sense. I've never considered myself the tugboat of the lake. Can I be doing this with my teeth? Can I be holding the rope with my teeth? Because that'd be much cooler. That's up to you. Okay.

That'd be better swimming with two arms. We'll go do some third-leg trials for it and figure out the most the one right way to pull a pontoon in a lake. We should tell them what bollard pull is too because that's the other big sort of measurement when it comes to tugging and pushing. A bollard first of all is that big sort of chunky thing on a dock that you'll tie a boat to. The big daddies. And bollard pull is the total amount of towing force generated by a tugboat.

And they measure that in kilonewtons. They do. And I've seen that often converted to tons. And it's the same thing. The more kilonewtons you have or the more tons you have, the more pulling power, towing power, pushing power that tugboat has so This there's this one

Boat that that Dave found called the island victory at least one article called the most powerful boat in the world I saw other articles that named some other shipping container vessel but this this tugboat say it's probably the most powerful tugboat around, the Island Victory has a bollard pull of 4,680 kilonewtons, which converts to 477 tons. A typical harbor tug, which is nothing to sneeze at, has a bollard pull between 500 and 600 kilonewtons. 600 kilonewtons converts to 61 tons. So this is an enormously powerful boat and that's the whole point. They're not fast, they aren't pretty, they're cute in a really

weird way, but they can generate so much power that they can push a shipping container vessel around. More importantly, if you have a really high bollard pull, the reason that this rating is even there is to find out which tug you can connect to which vessel because if a vessel's starting to go in the wrong direction and it's about to crash into say a bridge, the tugboat has to be able to go from zero, not moving at all in the water, to pulling that boat in the opposite direction away from that bridge in a moment's notice. And it has to have that much power. And they do.

They do. I think they're very attractive boats. You can tell a tugboat because it has, you know, they're built to tug and push. So they have a very wide beam, which is the widest point of the boat. They sit very low in the water, which is called a deep draft. And you know, they're little short stubby wide guys that sit really low. I think they're adorable and cool looking. They're very, very stable. They're not tippy at all when you know they're bumping against other things or pushing other things. And so they have to be just super stable and also

love that they have beards. That front bumper or a or a balfender. They call it a beard in that lingo and I think that's pretty great. Yeah, it's just what they use, like you said, when they purposely or accidentally bump up against a larger ship, you can't just have the tugboat crack up, so you have a fender. They're built to bump. They are built to bump, and some tugboats

aren't necessarily built with a beard. They'll have tires strung along the side to use as a bumper as well. Yeah, I think those are additional. I think the front always has a built in beard. Okay, fine. So one other thing that you're going to find about tugboats that we'll talk about more in depth later is that they're extremely nimble, they're agile, they can move in a different direction very quickly.

And that's a really important thing too because one of the big jobs that the tugboat plays in say like a shipping lane at like a port is to help ships avoid other ships coming in or out. So they have to be able to move not just pull a ship very. So they have to be able to move, not just pull a ship very easily, but they have to be able to move quickly and move that ship out of the way of say like another ship. Yeah, exactly. And I say we take an earlier break. Oh my gosh.

Because we're at a great spot to break here before we talk about the history of these things. You wanna do that? Let's break it. All right, let's break on three. This is S-Y-S-K. This is S-Y-S-K. This is S-Y-S-K.

This is S-Y-S-K. This is S-Y-S-K. This is S-Y-S-K. This is S-Y-S-K. This is S-Y-S-K. This is S-Y-S-K. This is S-Y-S-K. Y'all, what up?

It's your girl Jess Hilarious, and I think it's time to acknowledge that I'm not just a comedian. It's time to add uncertified therapists to my credentials because each and every Wednesday I'm fixing your mess on carefully reckless on the Black Effect Podcast Network. Got problems in your relationship? Come to me. Your best friend acting shady? Come to me. Thinking about cursing that one stank auntie out at the next family gathering? Do it. But come to me before you do because I cussed all mine out before. You want to fight your coworkers? Come to me.

Baby daddy mad because you got a boyfriend? Come to me. Thought you was the father but you not? Come to me. I can't promise I won't judge you, but I can guarantee that I will help you. As a daughter, a sister, a mother, and an entrepreneur, I've learned a lot in life, so I'm using my own perspective and experiences to help you fix your mess.

Send me your situation and let's fix it as a family. Listen to Carefully Reckless on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything. Hey everyone, this is Courtney Thorne-Smith, Laura Leighton, and Daphne Zuniga. On July 8th, 1992,

apartment buildings with pools were never quite the same as Melrose Place was introduced to the world. It took drama and mayhem to an entirely new level. We are going to be reliving every hookup, every scandal, every backstab, blackmail and explosion, and every single wig removal together. Secrets are revealed as we re-watch every moment with you. Special guests from back in the day will be dropping by.

You know who they are. Sydney, Alison and Joe are back together on Still the Place with a trip down memory lane and back to Melrose Place. So listen to Still the Place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. The forces shaping markets and the economy are often hiding behind a blur of numbers. So that's why we created The Big Take from Bloomberg podcasts to give you the context you need to make sense of it all. Every day in just 15 minutes, we dive into one global business story that matters.

You'll hear from Bloomberg journalists like Matt Levine. A lot of this beam stack stuff is I think embarrassing to the SEC. Amanda Mull, who writes our Business Week buying power column. Very few companies who go viral are like totally prepared for what that means. And Zoe Tillman, senior legal reporter. Courts are not supposed to decide elections. Courts are not really supposed to play a big role in choosing our elected leaders. It's for the voters to decide. Follow The Big Take podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. All right, I promised talk of history and here we go because if you wanted to invent

a tugboat, the 18th and 19th centuries was a pretty good time to do it because we were using sailing ships at the time for transporting people and goods and all kinds of things. And those things are gorgeous, beautiful in the water. They sailed great out on the high seas. But they did not do well, especially because they were just sailing ships, when they got around land in small tight spaces. So they would, you know, you've seen it in movies, they would dock, or not dock, but they would anchor, you know, a couple of hundred feet from shore and then start shuttling people and stuff in little tiny boats, because that's about as close as they could safely get.

And that's not efficient. Taylor would be rolling over in his grave. That's right. There was another problem too, even for a ship that could, that was nimble enough to kind of navigate its way into port, say like the mouth of a river in a harbor or something, right? Once it got in there, it had to wait for the wind to whip up again to set sail once more. And this was not something that happened every hour on the hour, or even twice a day, like the tide, sometimes you would have to wait for days or weeks for the right wind to come up so that you could catch and ship back out to sea again.

Also not at all efficient. So there was like a real need for tugboats to be invented, but what's nuts is tugboats were invented and then ignored for decades. And then finally, the guy who invented them who was just totally made fun of as we'll see for inventing tugboats was vindicated but I think he was dead already. Yeah I think he was. He was from England, 18th century inventor, his name no lie was Jonathan Hulls. That's nuts. It is pretty nuts and he thought it was like a helper vessel, is what he called it.

It was powered by a steam engine. And, but what he was talking about was tugboats. It could tow a sailboat in and out of port. This was in 1737 when he filed for a patent. It was called a description and draft of a new invented machine for carrying vessels or ships out of or into any harbor port or river against the wind in tide or in a calm. And it was totally genius 30 years before

James Watts steam engine hit the scene. And everyone was like what a dumb idea. Yeah not only that the people in his hometown of Gloucester, they wrote a song about him. Oh no. They wrote a song, they wrote, like, they thought this guy was so terrible and just such a lousy inventor, that there was a song, I'm guessing people would sing in pubs, about him specifically, his names in the song.

It went, Jonathan Holes with his patent skulls invented a machine to go against wind and stream But he being an ass couldn't bring it to pass and so was ashamed to be seen Imagine sitting there nursing like you're mead while everybody around you is singing that song about you You're not gonna try whip whip up a melody. Oh Jonathan Holes with his patent skulls invented a machine to go against the wind and stream. You should finish. Okay.

But he being an ass couldn't bring it to pass and so was ashamed to be seen. Wow. You went with the Gilbert and Sullivan version. Very nice. I guess so. All I know is we're getting kicked out of this pub any second now. Yeah, for sure. They're like, get out of Gloucester.

Yeah, I just stopped it. We're gonna get so much for that. So yeah, Holes was definitely ahead of his time, but it would be 60 years before the first steam powered tugboats. His invention were actually put into good use and they were deployed in Scotland. Yeah. And as we'll see, actually Scotland is where the tugboat got its name at the time.

I'm not sure what they call them. Maybe still helper vessels. I don't know. But one of the first things they did was to start pulling cargo along canals. Because at the time, if you wanted to move cargo easily over land, you did it over water that was cut into land, and you would do it with a donkey pulling your cargo along the shore. The donkey was walking on the shore with the line going from the donkey

to a little barge that was being pulled down a water-filled canal. That was the state of the art at the time. Yeah, have you ever walked along an old riverway that has those built-up banks for that purpose? Yeah, Toledo has something called the canal experience or historic canal experience. There's some canals running through part of the town from the early 19th century that you can walk along

and you're like, wow, this is an old donkey path, huh? Yeah, I had my experience doing that in Akron. So that may be an Ohio thing. I believe the waterway through Sand Run is where that was. And it was the same deal in Emily or her mom or somebody, cause you're up higher and it's an obvious path. And they're like, yeah, this is where the donkeys and pack horses would pull these things. Yeah. Oh, it's a donkey.

There was a paddle steamer named Charlotte Dundas that was the first tugboat in operation towing, for the very first trip, I think, two fully loaded sloops, 18 miles along the Forth and Clyde Canal at Glasgow at a scorching two miles per hour. Yeah, but still, like, it was working. That was the key. That's all that mattered. Yeah, they had all the time in the world. Right. And you can bet that every donkey in Scotland was like, whew. Thank God they invented these things, right? Yeah, probably.

So there was also, as we talked about, one of the big problems with sailboats as shipping vessels was that they had trouble getting in and out of harbors, they had trouble navigating, they had to wait for the wind. So very quickly, it seemed kind of obvious that you could, if you could get one of these boats into port, into harbor, which you could use a tugboat for, you could also pull it up river. It wouldn't have to navigate any longer because you could just pull it by a helper vessel into some of the the cities that were not located on the coast, but they were located on a river. One example I can think of is London and the Thames.

That's right, 40 miles inland. So that was a huge boon for London at the time. There was a steamship called the Majestic that worked with the East India Company towing things back and forth up the Thames. And Liverpool had one as well. So they were getting in on the game there in the UK. They were.

So like I said, it was in Scotland that tugboats got their name back in 1817 in Dumbarton, I think I'm saying that right. Okay. Oh, well, how would you say it? I would say Dumbarton, but I don't, I don't know. I'm just guessing. It's gotta be Dumbarton. Okay.

Uh, okay. Well, we'll go with one of those two. How about that? Sure. Somebody built a steamship, a tugboat, they named tug. They weren't called tugboats until this time. And I guess that name stuck because it also makes sense practically, you're tugging a boat behind you.

So that from henceforth on, they were known as tugboats. Yeah, and you know, earlier I was saying that, they said, oh, this idea is so dumb. I don't know if it was that it was so dumb, but steam power and stuff that came along a little bit later, like they didn't have steam engines at the time, so they wouldn't have even known it was dangerous. But when they did come online, why do I keep saying that?

I don't think it fits, right? It's a little anachronistic. I think so. But online doesn't mean just on the internet. Online just means like beginning to function, right, as a thing? Yeah, remember that Simpsons where Lenny goes little kid Lenny's like,

oh, I just logged on to my internet because he pooped his pants out of he pooped his bathing suit with the little internetting. So he said he logged onto his internet. Oh, that's so good. That's a good line. Oh boy, Lenny. Um, anyway, it's logged onto my internet.

Um, where was that? Oh yeah. Steam engines were dangerous. They w they would blow up a lot. There was, you know, when tugboats first started using, you know, coming online using that steam, they were like, I don't know, I mean, is it better to have this thing that might blow up a port? Right. And then the owners were like, well, we don't go on these boats. We just own them.

So sure. I mean, that's fine. They can blow up. But yes, they were viewed skeptically, I think. Right? Like it was, it was not just a done deal that these things were like going to save the industry or shipping. Yeah. But there was a proving ground, what ended up being a proving ground on the Tyne River that connected Newcastle to the North Sea, they were facing a problem, right? They had these barges that were called colliers, and they were sailboats, but they were coal movers because Newcastle was a huge coal producer. And these colliers could do a lot of damage because they were hard to navigate.

They had all the same problems that any sailing vessel had. So there was a guy named Joseph Price, who in 1818 was like, I think I've got a solution to this. I'm going to buy some of these steam ships that they're now being called tugboats, and I'm going to have them pull these colliers, these coal ships, up and down the tine. And I think it's going to revolutionize shipping. And Joseph Price was right on the money. The price was right.

HOFFMAN Oh, man, you almost had it right out of the gate. So now you could get 400-ton ships, because, you know, I don't know if we mentioned, they were loading like railroad cars onto these things for the first time. So it was very, very heavy stuff. They could go to Newcast things for the first time. So it was very, very heavy stuff. They could go to Newcastle for the first time. All of a sudden people in more distant places could get coal. So it wasn't just like, hey, it made things cheaper

and more efficient. It was literally changing lives all over the world. Right, and these new towns that were getting coal for the first time were able to give up having to burn dry donkey poop that they scraped up off the donkey trails along the canals. It was huge for them. So yeah, Joseph Price proved to the world like, no, these things are extraordinarily

valuable so much so that they're going to completely change shipping from this point on and they definitely have and they're still just as useful as ever. And they they made a name for themselves so much that when the Royal Navy purchased their first steam ships of any kind, they were tugboats. Yeah. The Comet and the Monkey. Comet and Monkey. And I can't decide whether it's a band name or a cartoon name. Comet and Monkey, that'd be a fun cartoon. I'd watch that.

Or drug. I'd also take that. Comet and Monkey. Just kidding. So yeah, they definitely proved their worth pretty early on. I mean, this is 1818 and the first ones were used

shortly before that, right? Yeah, and these were paddle boats, by the way. Up until the late 19th century, if you're picturing like your little friendly tugboat in your mind as we talk about all these stories, erase that. And now picture a tugboat with two paddles on both sides. It wasn't like the big paddle in the back, like the sort of fun things you ride around on

at Stone Mountain Park here in Georgia. Sure. That's where they're most famous. They were paddle wheels on both sides, which seems a little wider and more cumbersome, but that really, really, really made them much more maneuverable and able to steer in tighter places. And to steer in two different directions.

Like I got one of those zero turn lawnmowers. You put those things in two different directions and you're spinning like a top. It's the exact same thing. Because those two paddle wheels were able to be moved independent of one another. And once you can do that, yes, you just start doing donuts to show off in the harbor.

So the 19th century came and went, and those paddle wheel tugs were replaced with screw propellers, which is another term for a propeller, like you see on a ship. Like that's just called screw propellers. So like any ship, they were propelled by propellers. And then diesel engines came along, and that's when everything really kind of changed

because when you have a diesel engine, you can get some amazing horsepower out of it, way more than steam. It's also less dangerous. I think we talked about all this in our Rudolph diesel episode. And that's when the tugboats became, started to become the tugboats that we think of today.

That's right. Shall we take our second break? You bet. All right, we took an early one, so we're gonna take this one, and we're gonna come back and talk a little bit about, well, tugboats, right after this. Hey everyone, this is Courtney Thorne-Smith, Laura Layton, and Daphne Zuniga. On July 8, 1992, apartment buildings with pools were never quite the same as Melrose

Place was introduced to the world. It took drama and mayhem to an entirely new level. We are going to be reliving every hookup, every scandal, every backstab, blackmail, and explosion, and every single wig removal together. Secrets are revealed as we re-watch Every Moment With You. Special guests from back in the day will be dropping by. You know who they are. Sydney, Alison and Joe are back together on Still the Place

with a trip down memory lane and back to Melrose Place. So listen to Still the Place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Yo, what up? It's your girl Jess Hilarious, and I think it's time to acknowledge that I'm not just a comedian. It's time to add uncertified therapists to my credentials because each and every Wednesday I'm fixing your mess on carefully reckless on the Black Effect Podcast Network. Got problems in your relationship? Come to me.

Your best friend acting shady? Come to me. Your best friend acting shady? Come to me. Thinking about cursing that one stank auntie out at the next family gathering? Do it. But come to me before you do because I cussed all mine out before. You want to fight your co-workers? Come to me. Baby daddy mad because you got a boyfriend? Come to me. Thought you was the father but you not? Come to me. I can't promise I won't judge you, but I can guarantee that I will help you. As a daughter, a sister, a mother, and an entrepreneur, I've learned a lot in life. So I'm using my own perspective and experiences

to help you fix your mess. Send me your situation and let's fix it as a family. Listen to Carefully Reckless on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. AT&T, connecting changes everything. The forces shaping markets and the economy are often hiding behind a blur of numbers.

So that's why we created The Big Take from Bloomberg Podcasts, to give you the context you need to make sense of it all. Every day in just 15 minutes, we dive into one global business story that matters. You'll hear from Bloomberg journalists like Matt Levine. A lot of this Bumstack stuff is, I think, embarrassing to the SEC. Amanda Moll, who writes our Business Week buying power column. Very few companies who go viral are, like, totally prepared for what that means. And Zoe Tillman, senior legal reporter.

Courts are not supposed to decide elections. Courts are not really supposed to play a big role in choosing our elected leaders. It's for the voters to decide. Follow The Big Take podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen. So, um, you mentioned tugboat strike, right? I didn't. Oh, well, there's a tugboat strike we have to talk about that really kind of demonstrates how important tugboats made themselves over the years. In New York Harbor in 1946, every single tugboat operator, there were 300 of them in the harbor

at the time, they all went on strike. And this was, very quickly it became evident how essential tugboats were for everything in New York because there was coal coming from Lake Erie through the Erie Canal to the Hudson down to the harbor. And it would be spread all throughout Manhattan and all throughout New York. Food shipments came in by barge, garbage went out by barge. New York operated on barges and if you're using barges you need a tugboat to tow or push those barges. So when the

tugboat stopped working, New York stopped working. And within 12 days the tugboat operators got their demands fulfilled, which turns out to have just been nicer hats, from what I read. Yeah, they rationed food. They literally shut the lights down on Broadway. It was their backup plan of just, you know, using smaller boats to ferry stuff in and out. They were just like, Manhattan is far too big

for this already. Right. And the tugboat operators, I guess, I mean, what a moment to sit back and just sort of to ferry stuff in and out. They were just like, Manhattan is far too big for this already. Right. And the tugboat operators, I guess, I mean, what a moment to sit back and just sort of like say, yeah. Float? Now, yeah, gloat a little bit. Now, who is important?

The tugboat driver, Thomas, one day we'll be in Atlanta so we could get the word out about tugboats. And New York Harbor was a great place to sort of make that point, because, you know, if you didn't have tugboats, then those containers with all those goods and services are essentially useless. Right. I said float, by the way, but gloat works even better. Oh, you said float? Yeah. They were gloating while they were floating. Oh, okay. So there were some things that changed. Stuff you would not at all connect to why tugboats became less vital over the years.

Still incredibly important. And you can make a case that world shipping would essentially just stop if tugboats stopped. So they're really important, but just not in exactly the same ways as they were before, because we started getting our energy over things like pipelines. We started using things that weren't coal. Trucking and shipping containers became a much bigger thing than say barges over the years. So with each of those things, the tugboat became less and less

able to do what it did in 1946 and yet it's still so vital that you just can't do anything without them. Yeah for sure. You know they've got electric tugs now. I saw that there's one called the e-W, right? Yeah, it's a good looking tug. I mean, it's interesting. I never really thought about electric boats, but that's becoming more and more of a thing, which is kind of awesome. It is awesome, and let's talk about why.

Here's why, Chuck. Remember we said that these things generate crazy amounts of horsepower? Yes. Some harbor tugs or ocean-going tugs generate 27,000 plus horsepower. Some harbor tugs or ocean going tugs generate 27,000 plus horsepower. It's like having 27,000 horses just running at the back of this thing, like kicking their legs all at once, right? And to do that, you use a lot of fuel, a ton of diesel fuel. Some

of these boats can carry way more than they need in a day, like 30,000 gallons of diesel. But I saw that the average harbor tug, which is working almost constantly, will use about 3000 gallons of diesel fuel a day. And that is a lot of fuel to use, right? So it's using this non-renewable resource. It's also putting out crazy amounts of diesel emissions. And that's just one tugboat using 3000 gallons of diesel a day. The reason also I was like, why do they carry so much more than they need? Because doesn't that make the tugboat heavier and therefore you have to use more fuel to get more horsepower out of it. And the reason that I came up with that I found was that time is of such value in a

harbor at a port that it's more costly to stop what you're doing and go refuel than it is to carry around all that extra fuel. They have those capacities so that they have, they take way longer in between refuelings. That's the point. That's how crazy important time is in ports. Yeah. I get it. Especially in a place like New York Harbor.

Very busy, very busy. So you've talked about- That's the motto over the entrance. Down to the dock it says that. Yeah. What also you need to be is maneuverable because it's very busy, very busy. And you mentioned that a little bit earlier on

that they need to be able to move really in any direction very accurately and as quickly as possible. And the asthma thruster was a big change in that because that is a, imagine a propeller inside a housing sort of like a, you know, sort of like an E-fan or something like that.

And it can just turn, that's exactly what it looks like. I don't want you laughing. I never thought that. But it can turn 360 degrees, so it's not a fixed propeller and a rudder for steering, and it's not even a non-fixed propeller that can move left and right. It's a propeller that can spin in any direction, which means you've got one of those little joystick controllers as a tugboat pilot, and you can inch that thing in the most minute little ways with just a flick of the stick.

Yeah, isn't that amazing? Pretty cool. I also read about something called a tractor tug, which has basically two outboard motors, like those two side paddle wheels. And so you can move them independently. And they have a lot of power, too, just not as much as the Azimuth, I think.

But they're controlled by two joysticks. So it's hard enough, just think about using one. Imagine using two to move a tugboat around like a huge ship that you're trying not to knock into other ships. It's just, I can't, it's gotta be one of the more stressful jobs around piling a tugboat, right? I bet.

We'll have to ask Thomas. Yeah. We did mention a lot, I mean we talked a lot about moving boats around. That's obviously what you think of when you think of a tugboat, but they do a bunch of other stuff too. Salvage operations, SNR, or SAR, or search and rescue ops that we've talked a lot about on the show.

If there's ever a, you know, if there's a busy canal that's blocked or something, or a ship that has gone offline, say that, that is gumming up the works, you're going to send a tugboat in there to get those things out of there. So yeah, we talked about that, the ship that Ever Given, which blocked the Suez Canal for I think weeks, which is a huge dent in global shipping, right? We talked about that in detail, and I could not for the life of me

remember what episode that was in. Do you? What's it in? Did we do one on the Suez Canal or just the? No, I looked. If we did, we didn't name it that. Which canal did we do the episode on? I don't remember doing any canal episode.

Oh, we did some on canals, right? I don't think so. That seems very familiar to me. I think we just earlier talking about donkey paths and stuff did our canal episode. Hmm, I guess that's possible. Wait, wait, wait. We might've done one that included like the Panama Canal.

Yes, I'll bet it was in the Panama Canal episode. I think we did that one. Yeah, we did Panama Canal. Okay, there you go. And Love Canal. We did. A little different, but yeah. Also, by the way, the Navy just unveiled a whole new group of search and rescue ships.

They're called Navajo class tugboats. And they're pretty cool looking. All right, what else? Firefighting tugboats, of course. Yeah, they're called Fifi's. Cute. Either Fifi or Fi-Fi. I've only seen it spelled out. I bet it's Fifi. Fi-Fi would be weird. Yeah, Fifi's not weird in the sea? Well, I don't know, Captain. I don't have my sea

legs, but Fifi is at least a cutesy name. Fi-Fi is nothing. Let's try this out. Arrgh, look at that Fi-Fi. Arrgh, look at that Fifi. I think fi-fi wins the day. Okay. What else? Icebreakers? I don't mean at office parties either. Right. A tugboat just goes in between two people struggling to find something to talk about, and now all of a sudden they can talk about the tugboat that just went in between them. Yeah. He goes up to it and says,

if you could invite anyone from history to dinner, who would it be? Okay, I hate those questions so much. It's the worst. There's also anchor handling. There's actually special tugboats called anchor handling tugs, appropriately enough. And the anchors they're talking about are oil platform tankers. And these are ocean going tugs,

the ones that carry a hundred thousand gallons of diesel fuel because they're out to sea for indefinite periods of time. And the anchors that they're pulling around are massive. They're like keeping oil rigs out in the open ocean from floating away. So obviously they're really big anchors, but it's hard to get across how big they are unless you go look up photos of them. Try to find a photo of a human being standing or working near an oil rig anchor and it'll really kind of drive home what these tugboats are pulling around. Makes it even more impressive.

All right, I'm gonna look that up and tell you what I think before the end of the episode. Okay, good. Line handling too, like these tow ropes. If they're like, hey, we need to get this tow rope out to that ship. You don't just throw it on a guy's shoulder. These ropes, those anchors are the most massive ropes you've ever seen in your life. And so there's Thomas saying, just throw it on, guys.

I got it. I'll take it out there. Yeah, I was reading an LA Times article about, remember, the shipping shutdown, the cargo container backup in LA, Times article about, remember the shipping shut down the cargo container back up in LA, in Long Beach, at the pandemic? That just killed everything. The writer went out on a tugboat and was just kind of chronicling like a mourning in the life of this tugboat. And they were talking about how recently two deckhands, one had been injured and one had

been killed by a line tightening and pressing them up against the side of the tugboat so oh like jaws yeah exactly but killed them yeah yeah so it was a I mean you can just imagine like this is a three inch thick rope that just suddenly is you know thousands of kilonewtons pressing you against a metal, a big piece of metal, which is the inside of the ship. That's not the place that you want to be. So it is, being a deckhand, which is one of the jobs on the tugboat, is very dangerous.

And as we'll see, kind of the job you want to work your way up out of, I think. Yeah. You've also got engineers who, you know, they take care of those engines, they take care of all the getting things online, mechanical systems, electrical systems. You have your mate, your second in command and secondary pilot, and then you got that captain and the primary pilot that's running that ship. If you work in, let's just pick out New York City, because people think about tugboats a lot there in New York Harbor.

Do they? Yeah, everyone does. Okay. I took a poll. Okay. They work two week shifts, two weeks on, two weeks off. You live on that boat full time, and then on those days that you work, you work two six-hour shifts

six hours working six hours off six hours working six hours off and that is I'm sure Thomas would would verify that this is tough hard work. That is too short I mean you're like oh six hours shift that's not bad but then you have to eat and sleep in the next six hours. That's, yeah, I don't know why they do it like that. It seems like you would wear your crew out really fast with that schedule. Would you have them work 12 hours straight and then 12 hours off?

No, I think even eight hours, that extra two hours to unwind and eat and then get six hours sleep is adequate. Because I mean, seriously, you think about it. You're like, you're not doing six hours off and then you just fall over and sleep where you were just standing while you were working now that you're off the clock. You're gonna like unwind, you gotta eat.

You're gonna just do whatever, shave, shower. And then you're gonna get what? Three and a half, four hours sleep if you're lucky? Maybe five? I think that's a little whack, as they say. Yeah, it's whack, but I think it's one of those things with shift work, like you get used to sleeping all day and working at night. Those people probably get used to sleeping in

two, four-hour sets. Yeah, and I'm sure they're significant others, like, oh, you're awake again, huh? Yeah, but then they're at home for two weeks straight. That's what I mean. And then, jeez, can you get back to work? I don't know, man. It's a hard life. I'm sure Thomas can tell us. Oh yeah, for sure. There are push boats.

These are pretty fun. A push tug. That's a tow boat that has a squared off front at the bow and these padded beams called push knees. And you basically push those knees against the stern and you even lash it together sometimes and that you're just pushing pushing something around. Yeah that one's fine but I like the articulated tug barge or ATB. The sexiest link. It's an improved version of this right so the barge and

the tugboat have like a notch and a corresponding like pointy part. You put them together and put a pin through the two and now you've got like one single machine but the tugboats can still maneuver like fishtail and move that barge and all sorts of crazy hard angles, right? And I was like why don't you just mechanize or motorize the barge? And apparently they use this mostly for, um, oil tank, oil shipping. Uh, and you just get more oil out of it and the barges are cheaper because they don't have any self-propulsion. So it's kind of like, um, a shipping container in a truck, like the

tractor is different than the trailer. And so you can hook all sorts of different trailers up to the same tractor time and time again, rather than just, you know, having to pilot that trailer all the time. It made more sense to me when I was researching it than it is now that I'm explaining it. Well, it does sort of lend itself to the question of like, why don't these huge barges have a little secondary azimuth propeller system that can be deployed? Yeah, I think the expense, the added expense, I think they're cheaper because it's just a barge that is just basically a floating container that a tug can hook onto. The other, well, maybe so.

And the other thing that I also regret not investigating now is how the finances of this work. Is it a tugboat company that just says, all right, we're going to contract with this barge company for a certain set of time? Yes. And we'll just handle all your tugging and pushing needs basically in this harbor? So I think it kind of, from what I understand, it bears a bit of a resemblance to, um, like the shipping. Like trucking industry, where somebody needs a tow or an escort or something like that in or out of

the Harbor and you just contract with somebody then. I don't know if like you contract with one specific shipping company or you just kind of go back and forth depending on who needs what when or it's a mixture of both, I'm not sure. But I know that back in the day, it used to be whoever got there first. So as a ship was coming in, tugboats would race out to meet them and whoever got there first had that contract right there

because they were the first ones on the scene and they were the ones who were gonna pull the ship into its berth. Surely it's an all-inclusive thing though, and it's not just like, oh, you need to get over there, uh, 500 bucks. Right. Yeah. No, I don't think it's like that for sure, but, um,

I read another article, the AP did an article on the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore, last year, earlier this year? You remember when that ship ran into the bridge and the bridge collapsed in Baltimore? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. So there was like heavy criticism because that ship wasn't being escorted by a tugboat

and everybody was like, where was the tugboat? Why was this allowed to happen? And the AP was explaining, that's just not how it works. Like the tugboat pulls the ship out of its berth and kind of gets it on its way. And then it goes back and attaches to another ship. And then that ship has to find its way out of Harbor, including navigating under and next to bridges and other stuff. Right.

Um, and the reason why is money. It costs an extra 10 grand to pay a tugboat to pull you safely out into a Harbor so you can make way and the shipping industry, um, holds the cards now. Because if you start charging more at a port or you start, sorry, say requiring ships to have a tugboat all the way out into the Harbor, um, it's going to cost more money. And if another port nearby doesn't force you to do that, it's going to be less.

And so everybody's gonna go to that port and all of your dock workers are going to lose their jobs and you're not gonna get reelected as mayor of Baltimore. You see what I'm saying? Wow. Yeah. It's crazy how weirdly entrenched it is. And again, it's just so discouraging. It seems like every episode we talk about,

you can trace it back to some group of people who are cutting corners because of money. And then something bad happens and nobody does anything about it. I'm so sick of it. Yeah, that sounds like a new episode of The Wire too. It does. You okay?

Yeah, I'm alright now. Let me just apologize to Thomas. Sorry, Thomas. If you want to pick up your spirits, my friend, go to New York City and take a ride on the W.O. Decker, because that's one of the fun things you can do in New York. I have not done it yet, but I'm going to make a point to go to the South Street Seaport Museum in New York, where you can actually take a ride on the classic and beautiful W.O. Decker tugboat.

Yep, pretty neat. I'm gonna do it. There's some other stuff you can do too, but that's probably the best. Okay, good. I'd like to do the best things. Good. You got anything more on tugboats, Charles?

I got nothing. I just love these pictures. There's something about a tugboat. I like the way they look. Yeah. Got those tires hanging off of them and they're just, there's something about the utilitarian aspect and especially that W.O. Decker with that big old nose on the front. I don't even know what that is. That's the beard, right? Yeah, but it's not a beard that I've ever seen. It really looks like a beard. I was reading like a kid's maritime museum website about tugboats, and they were trying to explain why everyone loves tugboats. Because it's true, like, there's nobody who doesn't like tugboats, especially if you have nothing to do with the industry, right? You're just watching them from afar. And they explain that they're very powerful,

and they're small, but they're also very helpful. And I think they kind of nailed it on the head. Yeah. Actually, some of these beards are very beardy, so I get it. Okay. So Chuck gets it, and he mentioned beards twice in Quick Secession, which of course unlocks listener mail. That's right, and it also conjures beetle beard.

What? Sorry. You know, you say beetle just three times. Oh, gotcha, I gotcha. Yeah, I got it now. I saw that sequel last night. Yeah, what'd you think? Did you see it? Yeah. You know, I enjoyed it. I saw that sequel last night. What'd you think? Did you see it?

Yeah. You know, I enjoyed it. I thought it was fun. It's not some great movie, but none of Tim Burton's movies are great to me. Oh, I don't know about that. I mean, I think Ed Wood was great, but I think that's his only truly great film.

What? I mean, tell me another. Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow. I enjoyed Edward Scissorhands. I don't think it's great. Sleepy Hollow I thought was mid at best. He's got a whole, I disagree. Sleepy Hollow is one of my all time favorite movies.

That's one of those ones I can watch like anytime. Yeah. Hey, I like most of his movies, but I just don't think they're great films. I understand what you're saying. You know what I mean? The 1990 Batman, not the best. I would say that that's not a great movie, too, for sure. Yeah, but I mean, I like most of his movies.

I understand what you're saying. Fair enough. Yeah. Anyway, I thought it was good. It was fun. It was good enough for what I wanted out of it, which was a bit of nostalgia, and I LOL'd quite a few times because I just think Michael Keaton is really funny and Catherine O'Hara is really funny.

Yes, I think Catherine O'Hara did great. Yeah, but you know, it was just okay. I keep forgetting to recommend a movie to you that I'll see it and remember how great it was and then I forget to tell you about it again. It's called A Dark Song. It's about a dark song. Okay. It's about a woman who seeks revenge.

So she finds an occultist to help her conjure demons to enact revenge. How do you find the movies that no one else has ever heard? I don't know how I found that one. I really don't remember, but it's on Amazon prime, if I'm not mistaken. And it sounds like a hokey premise, but the research that the writers did is so dead on that it's entirely possible there's people out there who believe that you can do this exact thing that they're doing

and conjure this exact demon. It's nuts. It's really a good movie. It's pretty rough. I would not watch it with the kids, but it's a very good art house horror film. Well Ruby went as Megan for Halloween, so she's pretty into that stuff, but this sounds too dark.

It's a little, there's a part in there that she should not see. Okay, and I'll also say this. I just looked up a dark song really quickly and there's a Reddit thread, a dark song, is it real? So apparently it's pretty convincing. It is very convincing. All right so that's been movie minutes. Yep did you ever read the listener mail? No man I'm waiting on the queue. I said that you said you said something in quick succession and you

unlocked listener mail. Jerry already ran the chime. I got a sidetracked. Hey buddy I don't jump unless you tell me to so I did tell you and you Didn't jump and everything broke down as if the tugboat stopped tugging oh That means another lashing tonight. No I'm gonna lash you to the tugboats Yeah, put me up there with the beard All right, hey guys. Love the show, especially the Unsolved Mystery episodes.

Needless to say, I loved the one a couple of months ago about the mysteries of the internet and the mysterious song that caught my attention. Oh, I know where this one's going. Boy, they came pouring in and I have to say, the mystery seems to have been solved about the most mysterious song on the internet. It is not the one that people sent in right after we published that was not even the same song. Those people were lazy. But yeah, it broke and we've gotten like a hundred emails that that artist has been identified. There's a Reddit thread. It's a

Reddit user tracked it down. The song is called Subways of Your Mind by the group. I don't know if it's Fex or F-E-X Not sure how they pronounce it The user found the band from an old newspaper article in the Northwest Zeitung archive Wow while they were researching Hurfest bands bands performed that music festival was a lead The subreddit was working on the article They found was about a band called F-E-X. from Keele, who won a talent contest in Bremen, September 1984.

Their music was described as rock with wave and pop influences, tracks. The user managed to get in touch with a member of the band and they produced original tapes of the recorded song to prove they were the ones who recorded it. Wow. I read through the subreddit, they said, wait a minute before you go wide with this

because I wanna talk to the rest of the van first. Came back and said, I talked to the rest of the van. They're into it, and we want to like re-record it and get back together and re-record this thing, now that it's got some fame. Yeah, they're going to do an acoustic country version. This is from Michael, but big thanks to everybody who wrote in because it's pretty exciting. You know, Summerton Man was found on our watch.

Right, thanks to us. Thanks to us, and this was solved on our watch. As the longer we do the show, the more these mysteries are kind of, you know, maybe they'll find that guy who disappeared from the airport, remember that guy? Oh yeah, that poor kid from, yeah, I don't remember what island he was on. He was like Swedish or something? Yeah, that was a sad story.

Yeah, so we're hoping to clear up all these mysteries, but yeah, the mysterious song has been solved. Great, and it was Fex Subways of Your Mind, and who wrote in? Because I mean, a million people wrote in. I don't think we've ever got more email about the same thing in less time than on this one. It was astounding.

It was like when those post office workers come in at the end of Miracle on 34th Street and start dumping Santa letters onto the judge's bench. It was like that, but with emails about the most mysterious song on the internet. Yeah, and it's gonna get worse because this isn't gonna come out because we're front-loading for Christmas break, and so, like, we're gonna be getting these emails for weeks and weeks. Oh, dude. We'll be getting them for years, Chuck. We got an email from somebody this week,

and the subject line was, Chuck predicted Sharknado. Right. That is an old classic. Oh, man. Wait until they hear about Jared from Subway and Hugh Jackman. Hugh Jackman playing. P.T. Barnum. Who was it? P.T. Barnum. The greatest showman, yeah.

Anyway, that was from Michael. Thanks a lot, Michael. Very much appreciated. Thanks to everybody who wrote in. We don't mean to sound ungrateful. We're just joshing around. Yeah, we love you. Yep, thank you.

Yeah, keep us informed as best you can all the time. And since I said that and you wanna be like Michael, I should tell you that you can send us an email. Send it off to stuffpodcastsatihartradio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Hey, everyone. This is Courtney Thorne-Smith, Laura Leighton, and Daphne Zuniga. On July 8th, 1992, apartment buildings with pools were never quite the same as Melrose Place was introduced to the world.

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