The salvage tug Resolve Pioneer heads to Bristol Bay this week. But it won't be going up the river to recover the sunken salmon tender Lone Star, though it will be towing the specialized barge that will lift the wreck from the water, according to Capt. Shawn Ward.
The 207-foot-long tugboat will tow its sister vessel, the barge RMG 300, equipped with a 450-ton crane to hoist up the Lone Star. The trip from Unalaska will take about 2.5 days, with the Resolve Pioneer traveling at 12 to 14 knots per hour.
When it arrives in Bristol Bay's Nushagak Bay, a smaller tug with a shallower draft, the Impala, will take over. The Impala drafts just 10 feet, compared to 17 feet for the Resolve Pioneer which will stay eight miles offshore and serve as a hotel boat for the divers, Ward said.
At the scene in the Igushik, the 140-foot salvage barge will be secured with four anchors. When the Lone Star rises above water level, divers will patch the big hole on the bottom. Then, water will be pumped from the impaled tender for refloating and towing back to Unalaska/Dutch Harbor, about 300 miles to the south.
"We're feeling pretty confident about it," he said.
The departure from Unalaska was delayed because of tidal conditions. Bristol Bay, Ward said, has "pretty extreme tides" moving at speeds of four to seven knots per hour, and a tidal range between low and high water of about 20 feet.
The 78-foot Bering Sea fishing boat Lone Star sank in 18 feet of water on June 30, while working as a salmon transport vessel for Trident Seafoods near Manokotak and Dillingham, shutting down the salmon setnet fishery in the Igushik section because of concerns of leaking fuel and other toxic fluids contaminating the seafood and tainting the image of fish from other parts of Alaska.
This is the first local job for the Resolve Pioneer and barge RMG 300, following last month's merger of longtime local business Magone Marine Service and Resolve Marine Group, a worldwide company based in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
The tug and barge arrived in the Aleutians after a trip that started in Mobile, Ala., via the Panama Canal, said Ward. The journey took 41 days, nine to reach Colon, Panama, with to Los Angeles/Long Beach, California, and another 16 to the vessels' new homeport in the Aleutians, according to Ward, who said he didn't make the final run since he got off the boat in Los Angeles to get married.
By traveling an open-ocean great circle route instead of hugging the coast, the tug and barge saved about 450 miles between California and Alaska, Ward said. A "great circle" is a nautical term for the shortest distance between two points based on the curvature of the Earth, although it can appear longer to an untrained eye.
The new company is called Resolve Magone, and brings a sizeable number of new people to town, both on the boat and on land on a permanent basis.
"I think we're here for good," Ward said. "We're pretty excited about it."
Ward said the boat will always be fully crewed with a crew of nine licensed personnel, under the terms of a federal law regulating oil spill response vessels, the Oil Spill Prevention Act of 1990. The crew includes the captain and two other deck officers, three engineers, two able-bodied seamen, and an ordinary seaman as cook. Crew rotations will likely be six weeks on duty and an equal amount of time at home, Ward said.
The tug's fulltime presence is good news for shipwreck prevention, said Leslie Pearson of the Aleutian Island Risk Assessment program. Because it's a "multipurpose" vessel with various commercial opportunities , it's more affordable to maintain than a "dedicated" tug that would do nothing except standby for rescue missions, she said, for instance waiting to prevent another grounding and oil spill similar to the 2004 wreck of the bulk carrier Selandang Ayu on the north side of Unalaska Island.
Another group of new workers will live in town, according to project manager Todd Duke who said he'd leased a house in Unalaska Valley last week. At least initially, the new workers won't be bringing family members, although that may change, he said.
Ward said the tugboat's crewmembers are trained firefighters, and the vessel also serves as a fire boat equipped with water cannons, including one he called a "bazooka," for shooting streams of water from as close as 20 feet from a burning ship.
Earlier this year, Ward worked on a project for Resolve in New Zealand. "I've been from the bottom of the planet to the top of the planet in one year," he said. Ward said he previously spent over six years hauling U.S. Navy cargo between Jacksonville, Fla. And Guatanamo Bay, Cuba, working as a civilian mariner.
In February, Ward said he was the captain on the Resolve Pioneer when it towed the powerless 865-foot cruiseship Carnival Triumph from Progresso, Mexico to Mobile, Ala. He recalled encountering the cruise liner in total darkness, lights flickering on and off as the ship's crew worked to restore auxiliary power.
As the Resolve Pioneer closed in, it was greeted by cheers and a huge surge of light from cellphones, smartphones, and other cameras, clicked simultaneously by the 2,000 to 3,000 passengers onboard the drifting Carnival Triumph, providing an "amazing," even religious feeling, according to Ward.
This story originally appeared in the Bristol Bay Times/Dutch Harbor Fisherman and is republished here with permission. Jim Paulin can be reached at morsepond(at)yahoo.com