Sunday, August 23, 2009

Skookum TugsBritish Columbia's Working Tugboats

Photographs by Robb Douglas Text by Peter A. Robson & Betty Keller
ISBN 1550172751 Harbour Publishing 10 x 12 · 144 pages Hardback $49.95 150 color photos October 2002
As someone who has spent almost thirty years in the marine field in British Columbia, I thought I knew quite a bit about tugs. However, I soon learned some very interesting items that I never knew before.
The coffee table sized book is full of color photographs of local tugs at work; not standard company publicity shots. The captions of the photos are usually quite accurate however a few errors were noted such as a tug identified as RIVTOW JRW when it should have just been JRW and a pure car carrier (PCC) in the Fraser River is misidentified as a bulk carrier.
Several well known tugs are featured from the large RIVTOW CAPTAIN BOB to the small RIVER STAR, well known for many years as KATHY L in Vancouver.
One interesting point learned in this bok was "the fresh water of the Fraser offers sanctuary from wood-boring teredos that can render logs worthless in mere weeks."
Overall, the book is value for money in the beautiful color photographs alone. Shiplovers can look forward to many enjoyable hours with this work.

No comments:

Post a Comment