These Vessels Pull Their Weight -- and a Lot More

To the casual observer, a disaster is about to occur at the Port of Long Beach.

The South Korean containership Pohang Senator, more than two football fields long and heavy with retail goods from Asia, is nearing its parallel parking space at the port.

But the Hanjin Shipping Co. vessel is moving too fast, its bow is pointed in the wrong direction and it is closing on the rocks at the base of its pier. The ship will need to perform the rough equivalent of a Hollywood stunt scene in which the speeding car swings 180 degrees, skids sideways and comes perfectly to rest.

Despite appearances, this is a routine event at the nation’s largest seaport complex, where the ships keep getting bigger but the harbor doesn’t, leaving little room for mistakes. To help the Pohang Senator reach its home without incident, a new breed of tugboat, including the Campbell Foss, is plying the waters at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

At 78 feet in length and rated at 5,080 horsepower -- the rough equivalent of 15 Cadillac Escalade engines strapped together -- the Campbell Foss is about 45 feet shorter and 50% more powerful than the average tugboat working the harbor. The smaller size, coupled with increased power, gives the boat and its sister vessel, the Morgan Foss, the ability to push or pull with significantly more force from many different angles and in much tighter surroundings.

Pound for pound, they are the most agile and powerful tugboats on the West Coast, maritime experts say.

“These tugs’ response times to our commands are much quicker. They give us the power and maneuverability we need, when we need it,” said longtime harbor pilot Vic Shisler, one of about three dozen who board ships to help ship captains get the huge vessels safely to their dock at the twin ports. Harbor pilots know every subtle feature of the local underwater topography, including where the water is only a few feet below the vessel’s hull.

But the pilots also need help as the giant ships lose maneuverability with every knot of speed they drop as they slow for harbor traffic. They use tugboats -- two at a time on the biggest ships -- to steer, push or pull the vessels to their berths.

The job has been complicated by the ever-increasing size of cargo ships as operators look to boost profits through greater efficiency. The most common new vessel entering transpacific cargo routes carries the equivalent of at least 8,000 20-foot freight containers, compared with 1,741 containers five years ago, according to London-based Drewry Shipping Consultants Ltd. The world’s largest cargo ship, christened last week, is the 9,500 container Cosco Ningbo, chartered by China Ocean Shipping Co.

The mammoth ships have become commonplace at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Piloting one of these vessels is like getting behind the wheel of a sport utility vehicle so enormous that you can’t see the sidewalks, much less the pavement.

“The closest water you see is 250 yards ahead of you,” said retired Navy Adm. Dave Ramsey, who designs simulators for pilots to use before they try guiding real ships in and out of the twin ports and dozens of other ports around the world.

“The ships are growing, but the channels are not,” said David Selga, Southern California regional director of Foss Maritime Co., one of six tugboat companies that work the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports. “The tolerances and margins for error are down to inches. It can be a scary thing.”

A separate branch of the 117-year-old company, Foss Rainier Shipyard in Rainier, Ore., built the Campbell Foss, which was delivered in February, and the Morgan Foss, which arrived at the port complex in November. Both companies are owned by Seattle-based Marine Resources Group.

The boom in mega containerships, supertankers and giant liquefied natural gas tankers has fueled a rush in orders for new and more powerful tugboats, said designer Robert G. Allan of Robert Allan Ltd. of Vancouver, Canada, a 76-year-old company that has more than doubled its workforce to 43 people and tripled its order book for new work in the last five years. Allan co-designed the two tugboats with Foss Maritime.

The Campbell Foss and Morgan Foss are powered by twin Caterpillar diesel engines with carbon fiber drive shafts that are strong enough to move luxury yachts twice the tugs’ size. Their extreme maneuverability is provided by twin Rolls-Royce propeller drives, each able to independently rotate 360 degrees.

Inside the wheelhouse, the harbor pilot works joysticks that control the throttle of the engines and the direction of the drives. He is surrounded by glass, even for part of the wheelhouse roof, reflecting the fact that the boat is frequently working underneath a ship’s flaring sides.

Harbor pilots use the ships’ engines and rely on the tugs for steering, or they leave the muscle almost entirely to the tugs, which push or tow the ship. Basic radio commands -- pull easy, pull half or pull full speed -- are acknowledged aboard the tug via a traditional ship’s whistle.

At the helm of the Campbell Foss that day was captain John Carlin, who said that the size of the biggest ships now leave the harbor pilots and the tugs with only the smallest margins for error.

“We can put this tug into places where we could never maneuver a tug before,” said Carlin, who likes to joke that his vessel holds the unofficial harbor record for traveling sideways at a speed of 6 knots.

With only a few dozen harbor pilots and a slightly larger number of tug captains working the harbors, there is no formality. All are on a first-name basis.

“OK, Johnny, slowly pull her around 90, half pull, when you are comfortable,” the harbor pilot aboard the Pohang Senator instructs Carlin.

The tug, attached by a line to the stern of the ship via its forward winch, shudders and executes a move in which it is perpendicular to the rear of the containership, forming the lower half of an L. Water builds and crests the deck of the tug as it pulls sideways in a maneuver that would capsize a conventional tug, simultaneously slowing and turning the containership. Minutes later, having spun the big ship completely around, Carlin touches it with another car’s bumper while easing a vehicle into a parking space. The water churns and the Pohang Senator is pushed into place.

The tug then turns for home to change crews. Another Foss Maritime captain, Joseph Rock, will take the next shift. Rock finds an interesting twist in a career that began with the Marine Exchange of Southern California, where his job was trying to make sure that ships never bumped into one another.

“Now, all we do is bump into them,” Rock said. “It’s a contact sport.”