THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, April 23, 1996 TAG: 9604230353
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAUL CLANCY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 125 lines
A tugboat from the glory days of shipping and shipbuilding in Hampton Roads soon will grace the Norfolk waterfront.
A local tour operator has bought the Huntington, the once-proud yard tug of Newport News Shipbuilding and one of the busiest workhorses on the Norfolk waterfront, and is restoring it as a tugboat museum.
If all goes according to schedule, the classic red tug will take its place this fall beside the skipjack Norfolk at the Nauticus inner basin.
For a fee of $1 to $2, the public will be invited to clamber over the tug's deck and spacious interior, toot its whistle, watch its fire cannon spout into the harbor, and tour its historic exhibits.
Brook Smith, principal owner of the American Rover, the tall ship berthed at the Waterside Marina, announced the agreement with the city of Norfolk on Monday as he checked on the boat's restoration at the Newport News city piers.
Baltimore has its tall ship Constellation, Smith said. Portsmouth has its lightship. Now Norfolk will have its ``character'' boat, a tug.
The tug, once fitted out to yacht standards, will be available for special functions and may even serve, during non-museum days, as a floating bed and breakfast inn.
The Huntington, built by Newport News Shipbuilding in 1933 as its yard tug and fireboat, engaged in hundreds of ship moves every year until 1976 when it was sold to Bay Towing, then saw service as one of the busiest tugs in the Norfolk Harbor until 1994 when it was retired.
Local tugboat enthusiasts say the 1,200 horsepower Huntington may have moved more Navy ships than any other tug in history.
Mention of the Huntington, named after Collins B. Huntington, the founder of the Newport News shipyard, evokes fond memories from those who have worked on the tug.
``During her time, there was probably not another tugboat around that could handle ships like she could for the power she had,'' said Ken Archer, the dispatcher for Bay Towing. ``She was a big, heavy boat that could do a lot of work.''
Originally powered by a coal-fired steam engine, the Huntington was converted to diesel power in 1951.
``We hated to see her leave when she was put up for sale,'' said Tommy Bishop, a tug master at Newport News Shipbuilding.
Even though no match for today's 4,000- to 5,000-horsepower tugs, the Huntington had the advantage of a wide beam that allowed the tug to nuzzle close to ships without its wheelhouse making contact with the ship's hull.
``That gave her a lot more control,'' Bishop said.
The Huntington's operation at the Nauticus pier won't cost the city anything, the boat's owners say. But they expect the floating museum to attract 40,000 visitors to the waterfront in its first season, bringing added admission taxes to city coffers and indirect benefits from additional downtown visitors.
``We're quite excited about the prospect of the synergy that can be achieved with the museum and Nauticus and the waterfront,'' said Assistant City Manager Sterling Cheatham, who helped land the deal for the city.
City Manager James Oliver, a self-described ``frustrated tugboat captain,'' said, ``You can't look out at the harbor without seeing a tugboat coming and going. I think the tugboat people are an integral, historic part of a working waterfront.''
``People love tugboats,'' the owners say in their proposal to the city. There is, they feel, ``a strong demand for a permanently moored character vessel open for visitation. What better attraction than Waterside's trademark, the tugboat?''
The Huntington, 109 feet long, 29 feet wide and 14.5 feet deep, weighs in at nearly 300 tons.
A flashlight playing over the cast-iron surface of the diesel monster down in the engine room, basically the 12-cylinder power plant of an old locomotive, reveals something of its heart and power. It is the size of a kneeling elephant.
Covered with dust and reeking of grease, it is soon to be cleaned and polished, with plexiglass covers over its piston shafts.
``It's hard to look at it now and think it's ever going to happen,'' said Smith, touring the boat.
The Huntington is being restored near its birthplace in Newport News by Mid-Atlantic Trawler Service. When its deck, roof and smokestack are fixed and painted, probably by July, it will be towed to the Norfolk waterfront, where inside restoration will begin.
Bill James, who heads the work for the contractor, studied classical painting in Milan, Italy, before going to work on boat restoration.
``For me, this is the culmination of a lot of things,'' he said. ``When you put something like this back together, it's art.''
Among the Huntington's accommodations are two staterooms for the crew - engineer, mate, deckhand and cook; a pine-paneled main salon; a captain's cabin; galley; fo'c'sle - or forward storage area; and wheelhouse.
Brass speaking tubes that communicated with the engine room, a cast-iron wheel and dual throttles that indicate ``ahead,'' ``stop,'' and ``astern'' grace the wheelhouse.
A radio log says something of the tug's last days:
``Answered C.G. Cowslip outbound Lambert's Bend,'' it says for July 6, 1993. Its last working entry, for Nov. 2 that year, says simply: ``Passing Miss Gail.'' MEMO: EXPECTED BENEFITS
The Huntington's operation at the Nauticus pier won't cost the city
anything, the boat's owners say.
They expect the floating museum to attract 40,000 visitors to the
waterfront in its first season, bringing added admission taxes to city
coffers and indirect benefits from more visitors to downtown.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by RICHARD L. DUNSTON, The Virginian-Pilot
The Huntington will take its place this fall near Nauticus. Visitors
will be able to clamber over the tug's deck and toot its whistle.
Photo by RICHARD L. DUNSTON, The Virginian-Pilot
Alan Whitehurst, left, and William James examine rust spots on the
Huntington. The 300-ton, 109-foot tugboat is being renovated to
serve as a floating museum on Norfolk's waterfront.
by CNB