 |
| ARTHUR FOSS (ex-WALLOWA) 111.6' x 23.9' x 11.61' 225 G.t. 127 N.t. Built in 1889 Designer: David Stephenson by Willamette Iron and Steel Works, for Oregon Railway and Navigation Co. Photographer and date unknown. |
The Storied Past and Second Life of the Grandaddy of Puget Sound Tugboats
by Dick Stokke
for Puget Sound Enetai August 23-September 6 1984 p. 14
for Puget Sound Enetai August 23-September 6 1984 p. 14
"The classic tug ARTHUR FOSS has once again set out to sea –– this time [1984] on a tough 2,000-mile odyssey to Alaska. At her age, any other craft would be beached and displayed as a flowerpot or rotting forgotten in the mud somewhere, but, after a few false near-starts, this tug sailed from Seattle on August 19, manned by a determined crew of volunteers from Northwest Seaport, the museum that has owned her since 1970. The ARTHUR FOSS will carry official greetings and gifts from Washington's Governor Spellman to Alaska's Governor Sheffield on the occasion of Alaska's first quarter century of statehood.
This voyage will require 52 separate navigational charts, $3,000 in special insurance, several thousand gallons of fuel, thousands of dollars worth of purchased, begged, or donated labor and equipment, and the love, devotion, and prayers of hundreds of friends left behind and along the way. The rugged old sea-scrapper deserves all this attention –– and more. In the tradition of the legendary Foss Launch and Tugboat Co and its Tugboat Annie, the ARTHUR FOSS has spanned the ages of sail, steam, and diesel, two world wars, and unaccounted good times and bad. Her succeeding crews have passed along the flame of pride and devotion and it burns just as brightly today –– probably even brighter.
Northwest Seaport also owns and tries to care for the 1904 lightship RELIEF, the lumber schooner WAWONA, and the old steam ferry SAN MATEO. But for the countless volunteers who have restored her and kept her chugging, the ARTHUR FOSS is the apple of maritime preservation –– and a brighter spot in the group's often frustrated efforts at it.
The tug was built in 1889 as the WALLOWA by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Co with a steam engine made in San Francisco. She was listed by Lloyd's Register in 1904 as having twin cylinders, 122-horsepower, 24" bore, a 36" stroke, and a top boiler pressure of 125 pounds. For a decade she towed sailings over the treacherous Columbia bar. The [Yukon] gold rush saw her towing the steamer YOSEMITE from Puget Sound to the Klondike. She was driven ashore in a winter storm towing a barge south from Skagway, survived to carry mail between Juneau, Haines, and Skagway in 1900, and in 1903 began towing logs in Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca from such points as Port Crescent and Port Angeles. In April 1918 she towed the crack stern wheeler BAILEY GATZERT into Puget Sound, where BAILEY entered the Seattle-Bremerton run as the first auto carrier in the area.
The WALLOWA lost her deckhouse and machinery and machinery in a fire in 1927 and was rebuilt by Todd Shipyards. In January 1929 she joined the huge Foss Launch and Tug fleet and was later renamed the ARTHUR FOSS after the oldest of three sons of Thea and Andrew Foss, the company's founders.
In 1933 the ARTHUR 'went Hollywood' for MGM. After a cosmetic job to make her uglier, she became the NARCISSUS in the movie Tugboat Annie with a script based on the Norman Reilly Raine series in the Saturday Evening Post. During filming the ARTHUR/NARCISSUS was accidentally rammed into a passing ferry, the footage of the crash was written into the movie while the tug spent two days in the repair yard at MGM's expense.
This voyage will require 52 separate navigational charts, $3,000 in special insurance, several thousand gallons of fuel, thousands of dollars worth of purchased, begged, or donated labor and equipment, and the love, devotion, and prayers of hundreds of friends left behind and along the way. The rugged old sea-scrapper deserves all this attention –– and more. In the tradition of the legendary Foss Launch and Tugboat Co and its Tugboat Annie, the ARTHUR FOSS has spanned the ages of sail, steam, and diesel, two world wars, and unaccounted good times and bad. Her succeeding crews have passed along the flame of pride and devotion and it burns just as brightly today –– probably even brighter.
 |
| 1889 Tug ARTHUR FOSS Location: Historic Ships Wharf Lake Union Park, King County, WA. Photo by Joe Mabel 12 Sept. 2007. With permission. |
Northwest Seaport also owns and tries to care for the 1904 lightship RELIEF, the lumber schooner WAWONA, and the old steam ferry SAN MATEO. But for the countless volunteers who have restored her and kept her chugging, the ARTHUR FOSS is the apple of maritime preservation –– and a brighter spot in the group's often frustrated efforts at it.
The tug was built in 1889 as the WALLOWA by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Co with a steam engine made in San Francisco. She was listed by Lloyd's Register in 1904 as having twin cylinders, 122-horsepower, 24" bore, a 36" stroke, and a top boiler pressure of 125 pounds. For a decade she towed sailings over the treacherous Columbia bar. The [Yukon] gold rush saw her towing the steamer YOSEMITE from Puget Sound to the Klondike. She was driven ashore in a winter storm towing a barge south from Skagway, survived to carry mail between Juneau, Haines, and Skagway in 1900, and in 1903 began towing logs in Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca from such points as Port Crescent and Port Angeles. In April 1918 she towed the crack stern wheeler BAILEY GATZERT into Puget Sound, where BAILEY entered the Seattle-Bremerton run as the first auto carrier in the area.
The WALLOWA lost her deckhouse and machinery and machinery in a fire in 1927 and was rebuilt by Todd Shipyards. In January 1929 she joined the huge Foss Launch and Tug fleet and was later renamed the ARTHUR FOSS after the oldest of three sons of Thea and Andrew Foss, the company's founders.
In 1933 the ARTHUR 'went Hollywood' for MGM. After a cosmetic job to make her uglier, she became the NARCISSUS in the movie Tugboat Annie with a script based on the Norman Reilly Raine series in the Saturday Evening Post. During filming the ARTHUR/NARCISSUS was accidentally rammed into a passing ferry, the footage of the crash was written into the movie while the tug spent two days in the repair yard at MGM's expense.
After the ARTHUR's movie career, Foss replaced her 1904-vintage steam engine with a new 700-HP, six-cylinder, direct-reversing (no gearbox) diesel made by Seattle's Washington Iron Works. Over 250 of these stalwart motors are still in use, and Washington Iron still gets requests for parts and manuals. This same engine will carry the ARTHUR FOSS to Juneau and back this summer; chief engineer Allan Rees says, 'She still has a musical tone, cruises at 200 RPM, and at hull speed revolves slower than an auto engine at idle.'
The ARTHUR FOSS survived another fire in 1937 while storm-bound in Pt. Townsend’s Discovery Bay with a tow of logs. The blaze was so stubborn she was finally pumped full of water, then towed to Lake Union Drydock for a $20,000 repair job. She next headed for the South Pacific on military contract duty in 1940. She was towing two barges 12 hours out of Wake Island for Oahu when the Japanese clobbered Pearl Harbor. Capt. Oscar Rolstad ignored military orders to cut loose his barges and run for safety, saying his speed without them would still be only about nine knots. Crewmen hung over the side to daub out the green and white Foss colors with a dingy gray, and the ARTHUR made it safely back to Hawaii. Rolstad was first chastised, then commended for his gumption.
The Navy kept the ARTHUR until 1947 when she returned to towing logs out of Port Angeles until she was replaced in 1966 by a new Foss 'super tug.' Retirement finally came in 1966 and donation to Northwest Seaport in June 1970. Not until 1979 was the crew of volunteers formed to restore the old tug to operating condition, a herculean job finished in May 1981. ARTHUR raced that year in Olympia's Harbor Days annual tugboat race, unlimited ocean-going division, and did an astounding 11.6 knots over two miles from a dead stop. No one breathed a discouraging word when Crowley Maritime's working tug RETRIEVER, manned by a paid crew and 50 years younger, pulled ahead and won. The crowd went wild when the ARTHUR's old whistle gave by far the louder blast as she crossed the finish line.
Among the countless repairs and refittings the ARTHUR needed was one especially nerve-wracking one: repitching her 1942 vintage propeller for high, more fuel-efficient gearing. Coolidge Propellor Co pulled off the repitching without destroying the aged, worn metal. Her stem bearing was replaced, her huge 10-inch shaft remachined, her rudder rebuilt, and her plank's butt ends recaulked.
'She's tight and seaworthy,' avows one volunteer, Tom Parker of the Center for Wooden Boats. 'We're not doing this with our fingers crossed.' He admits to one remaining hurdle: 'We have money for fuel for the way up. Getting back is another problem. But things seem to solve themselves as they go.'
Parker will not be aboard for the trip or Barney Bruce, the ARTHUR's usual skipper, he's relinquished the wheel to retired Foss master Guy Johnson. But Bruce will be close by, at the helm of the Sea Scouts' 42-yr old former Army T-boat, the PROPELLER. She will follow the ARTHUR up the coast with two dozen Portland and Olympia schoolkids aboard.
Bruce notes an irony there. The PROPELLER could actually cruise day and night and make better time because she's classed as a working boat, while the FOSS is regarded by the insurance people as a yacht––if you can imagine that. She won't be covered unless she cruises by day only. I guess they're putting us on their books as a bunch of amateurs.'
The yacht ROYAL PRINCESS, the cruise ship SUNDANCER, and all the other newer craft that have made sad headlines up in the same waters should have had such a crew of 'amateurs.' But then, none of them was the ARTHUR FOSS."
The ARTHUR FOSS is suspected to be the oldest, operating wooden tug in the US.
Click here to see The ARTHUR at home in Seattle / YouTube
Some of her past crew:
Captains George A. Pease, R.E. Howes (first in service), E. Caine, Frank Harrington, Bowers, W.B. Sporman, Martin Guchee, Vince Miller, Lynn Davis, Arnold Tweter.
Engineers: A.F. Goodrich, John S. Kidd, John Melville.
The ARTHUR FOSS survived another fire in 1937 while storm-bound in Pt. Townsend’s Discovery Bay with a tow of logs. The blaze was so stubborn she was finally pumped full of water, then towed to Lake Union Drydock for a $20,000 repair job. She next headed for the South Pacific on military contract duty in 1940. She was towing two barges 12 hours out of Wake Island for Oahu when the Japanese clobbered Pearl Harbor. Capt. Oscar Rolstad ignored military orders to cut loose his barges and run for safety, saying his speed without them would still be only about nine knots. Crewmen hung over the side to daub out the green and white Foss colors with a dingy gray, and the ARTHUR made it safely back to Hawaii. Rolstad was first chastised, then commended for his gumption.
The Navy kept the ARTHUR until 1947 when she returned to towing logs out of Port Angeles until she was replaced in 1966 by a new Foss 'super tug.' Retirement finally came in 1966 and donation to Northwest Seaport in June 1970. Not until 1979 was the crew of volunteers formed to restore the old tug to operating condition, a herculean job finished in May 1981. ARTHUR raced that year in Olympia's Harbor Days annual tugboat race, unlimited ocean-going division, and did an astounding 11.6 knots over two miles from a dead stop. No one breathed a discouraging word when Crowley Maritime's working tug RETRIEVER, manned by a paid crew and 50 years younger, pulled ahead and won. The crowd went wild when the ARTHUR's old whistle gave by far the louder blast as she crossed the finish line.
Among the countless repairs and refittings the ARTHUR needed was one especially nerve-wracking one: repitching her 1942 vintage propeller for high, more fuel-efficient gearing. Coolidge Propellor Co pulled off the repitching without destroying the aged, worn metal. Her stem bearing was replaced, her huge 10-inch shaft remachined, her rudder rebuilt, and her plank's butt ends recaulked.
'She's tight and seaworthy,' avows one volunteer, Tom Parker of the Center for Wooden Boats. 'We're not doing this with our fingers crossed.' He admits to one remaining hurdle: 'We have money for fuel for the way up. Getting back is another problem. But things seem to solve themselves as they go.'
Parker will not be aboard for the trip or Barney Bruce, the ARTHUR's usual skipper, he's relinquished the wheel to retired Foss master Guy Johnson. But Bruce will be close by, at the helm of the Sea Scouts' 42-yr old former Army T-boat, the PROPELLER. She will follow the ARTHUR up the coast with two dozen Portland and Olympia schoolkids aboard.
Bruce notes an irony there. The PROPELLER could actually cruise day and night and make better time because she's classed as a working boat, while the FOSS is regarded by the insurance people as a yacht––if you can imagine that. She won't be covered unless she cruises by day only. I guess they're putting us on their books as a bunch of amateurs.'
The yacht ROYAL PRINCESS, the cruise ship SUNDANCER, and all the other newer craft that have made sad headlines up in the same waters should have had such a crew of 'amateurs.' But then, none of them was the ARTHUR FOSS."
The ARTHUR FOSS is suspected to be the oldest, operating wooden tug in the US.
Click here to see The ARTHUR at home in Seattle / YouTube
Some of her past crew:
Captains George A. Pease, R.E. Howes (first in service), E. Caine, Frank Harrington, Bowers, W.B. Sporman, Martin Guchee, Vince Miller, Lynn Davis, Arnold Tweter.
Engineers: A.F. Goodrich, John S. Kidd, John Melville.
Thank you very much for posting this classic article and helping get a little more publicity for the old Arthur! I am the vessel manager in charge of her (and Northwest Seaport's other vessels) and am wondering if you would be willing to send a copy of the black and white photo at the head of the article--it's one I haven't seen before. Looks like it might have been taken between 1937 and 1940. Keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteSorry to take so long giving the old lady some ink. Sure, can that wait until next week or so, unless you would like permission to download from the site. There is no email or name to your contact just received. Thanks for reading the Log!
ReplyDeleteAnd