and they said bring it on. Let's do it." By a happy coincidence, the most prominent designer of ATBs, Bob Hill, of Ocean Tug & Barge Engineering, lives about an hour's drive from Senesco. "Reinauer had an equipment package, specifying the engines and associated resources, which we were to build around," said Mike Foster. "We sent the specifications to Bob Hill. We could bring him in with the small engineering group we have here, and they were able to work out a lot of the details. We started with Bob's plans for an earlier build, the Capt. Hagen, and put the program together from there. There's no question in my mind that we could build a shaped tug, but the time frame made it expedient to do a design that was more builder-friendly."
Modular construction at work: a massive panel assembled nearby is lifted into place on a barge for Reinauer. (Photo: Don Sutherland)
Building flat-out
sive resume of achievement in the shipbuilding business. "Mike was acting basically as the manager of the yard, so we made him vice-president and general manager. Joe Bush, who was an operations manager, we stepped him up to VP of operations."
Less is more?
The various principals at the new Senesco express different views on its scale. A "small footprint" is one frequent description of the 25-acre facility, and there are sometimes references to working within its "constraints." Craig Reinauer, however, notes that before their fire last year, Washburn & Doughty was operating in about seven acres, "and they were building tugboats. Until the time of the Ruth's maiden voyage, we had two tugs being built at Senesco, and three barges � two 100s, and an 80." Reinauer does not consider five boats a-building to be a symptom of constraints. But it does take planning and scheduling. Before one module enters the erection area, its predecessor has to leave. Assemblies come out of the fabrication shop to be flipped for down welding � the cranes have to be ready. One bottleneck could stall five vessels. Joe Bush took a proactive approach toward getting a relatively new team to mesh. A production meeting is held every morning at 8:30, where various responsible parties in the shipyard convene to exchange progress reports, analyze the movement of steel and structures through the yard and otherwise keep synchronized. Reinauer believes Bush has done his work well. "We were building these barges and we needed a way to propel them. That would be a tugboat. I asked Joe and Mike what they thought,
32 MN
"One of the requirements of the boats," said Bob Hill, "was that they would be simple to build, made of a shape that did not require the shipyard to curve anything. Basically it is a tug whose hull form is composed of a number of facets, or planar plates, which shape the vessel as opposed to conventional shaped and curved plating. This allows for a simpler means of construction in yards used to building simple barge shapes. It also allows some of the tug to be built on a panel line. The key is that the angles of the hull facets are chosen based on CFD, to provide the lowest possible resistance, therefore giving the boat excellent speed and maneuverability, and the shape itself allows for greater stability."
Like a giant Revell Authentic Kit, the modules forming the Ruth's sister, the Laurie Ann Reinauer, are nearly ready to join the hull. The enclosure of sea containers is used as a windbreak, as well as for storage. (Photo: Don Sutherland)
May 2009