USCGC Mesquite (WAGL/WLB-305) was the lead ship in the Mesquite class of seagoing buoy tenders operated by the United States Coast Guard. She served in the Pacific during World War II, and spent the rest of her Coast Guard career in the Great Lakes. She ran aground and was wrecked in December 1989 off the Keweenaw Peninsula in Lake Superior. She was scuttled nearby as a recreational diving attraction.
A salvage tug, also known historically as a wrecking tug, is a specialized type of tugboat that is used to rescue ships that are in distress or in danger of sinking, or to salvage ships that have already sunk or run aground.
USS Munsee (AT/ATF-107) was an Abnaki-class fleet ocean tug. She is the only ship of the United States Navy to hold the name Munsee, which is the name of a subtribe of the Delaware Indians, still living in Wisconsin and Kansas.
MVNew Carissa was a freighter that ran aground and broke apart on a beach near Coos Bay, Oregon, United States, during a storm in February 1999. An attempt to tow the bow section of the ship out to sea failed when the tow line broke, and the bow was grounded again. Eventually, the bow was successfully towed out to sea and sunk. The stern section remained on the beach for over nine years until it was dismantled and removed in 2008.
Edward M. Cotter is a fireboat in use by the Buffalo Fire Department at Buffalo, New York, United States. Originally named William S. Grattan, it was built in 1900 by the Crescent Shipyard of Elizabeth Port, New Jersey. Due to age, it was rebuilt in 1953 and renamed Firefighter upon its return to service. The following year it was renamed Edward M. Cotter. its namesake, Edward Cotter, was a Buffalo firefighter and leader of the local firefighters union who had recently died.
USS Navajo (AT-64) was an oceangoing tugboat in the United States Navy, and the lead ship of her class. She was named for the Navajo people. Originally called the Navajo-class of fleet tugs, they were later renamed the Cherokee-class after loss of the first two ships of the class.
USS Vireo (AM-52) was a U.S. Navy Lapwing-class minesweeper, No. 52, reclassified on 1 June 1942 as a fleet tug. The bulk of her combat career was served in this capacity.
USCGC Ossipee (WPR-50) was a United States Coast Guard cutter of the Tallapoosa class constructed by Newport News Shipbuilding of Newport News, Virginia, and commissioned 28 July 1915. Her hull was strengthened for light icebreaking operations. She was assigned a homeport of Portland, Maine, after commissioning and cruised as far south as Cape Ann, Massachusetts, serving in a law enforcement and search and rescue capacity. She saw service in both World War I and World War II.
Irving Whale is a Canadian barge that sank off the north coast of Prince Edward Island, while en route from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Bathurst, New Brunswick, with a cargo of Bunker C oil in a rich fishing area. It is "one of Canada's most notorious nautical disasters". The barge, owned by J.D. Irving Ltd., had carried oil for JDI from 1967 until it sank in 1970. She was refloated in 1996, re-fitted as a deck barge, re-activated, and renamed ATL 2701 in 2001 and renamed again in 2009, as Atlantic Sea Lion. Since the accident, she only transports dry cargo.
USNS Sioux (T-ATF-171) was a United States Navy Powhatan-class tugboat operated by the Military Sealift Command (MSC). She was in service from 1981 to 2021 and spent the bulk of this time supporting the Pacific Fleet.
Acushnet – a steel-hulled revenue cutter – was launched on 16 May 1908 at Newport News, Virginia, by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co.; sponsored by Miss Alayce Duff; and commissioned at Baltimore on 6 November 1908. She saw service as a United States Revenue Cutter Service cutter, a U.S. Navy fleet tug, and as a U.S. Coast Guard cutter. She was taken out of service 8 January 1946.
USCGC Tupelo WAGL/WLB-303, was a Cactus (A) Class 180-foot buoy tender vessel built by Zenith Dredge Company of Duluth, Minnesota. Her keel was laid 15 August 1942, launched 28 November 1942 and commissioned on 30 August 1943. She was built as a WAGL and redesignated a WLB in 1965.
Herakles was a pusher vessel owned by Finnish towing and marine salvage company Alfons Håkans Oy Ab. The ship, originally built as salvage tug Into in 1967, was converted to a pusher in 1991 to be chartered to Rautaruukki Oyj and later ESL Shipping Ltd as the third pusher vessel for the Finnpusku system, a Finnish integrated tug and barge system built in the mid-80s.
Bruce Hudson was an oil tanker which mainly carried petroleum products on the North American Great Lakes. She was built in 1935 by the Horton Steel Works Ltd. of Fort Erie. Originally Bruce Hudson, and sister ships, were unpowered tank barges, that relied on tugboats to tow them from port to port. This did not prove very workable. In July, 1935, Bruce Hudson capsized in high seas off Cobourg, Ontario, while being towed from Montreal to Port Credit, Ontario, with a load of crude oil. She was towed upside-down to St. Catharines, Ontario, siphoned out, righted, and returned to service. In November 1935, the crew of Bruce Hudson were removed from the barge in high seas, again off Cobourg, when the tug Ethel ran low on fuel and had to leave the vessel adrift on Lake Ontario. The steamer Brulin took the barge in tow and won salvage fees in Exchequer Court of Canada.
Seaforth Channel is a channel in the Central Coast region of the Canadian province of British Columbia which is part of the Inside Passage - the 950 miles (1,530 km) passage between Seattle, Washington and Juneau, Alaska. The marine highway goes through Seaforth Channel on the way to Milbanke Sound, one of the open sea portions of the Inland Passage. Seaforth Channel which is part of the Prince Rupert/Port Hardy BC ferry route, extends in a westerly direction from Denny Island to Milbanke Sound between Denny Island, Campbell Island and the Wright group of islands on the south. In October 2016, a Texas-owned tug/barge transiting the Canadian waters of the Inside Passage without a local pilot was hard grounded on a reef at the entrance to Seaforth Channel in October 2016. More than 100,000 L of fuel contaminated the coast, coves and shores 20 km (12 mi) west of Bella Bella, the core community of the Heiltsuk Nation as well as the environmentally sensitive Great Bear Rainforest - Canada's contribution to the Queen's Commonwealth Canopy (QCC), a network of forest conservation programs. Clean up response and salvage was criticized by the Heiltsuk, B.C. Premier Christy Clark and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In November in Vancouver the Prime Minister announced a $1.5B ocean protection plan to "create a marine safety system, restore marine ecosystems and undertake research into oil spill cleanup methods."
The SS Lakeland was an early steel-hulled Great Lakes freighter that sank on December 3, 1924, into 205 feet (62 m) of water on Lake Michigan near Sturgeon Bay, Door County, Wisconsin, United States, after she sprang a leak. On July 7, 2015, the wreck of the Lakeland was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
SS Selah Chamberlain was a wooden-hulled Great Lakes freighter that sank in Lake Michigan in 1886, 6 miles (10 km) off the coast of Sheboygan, Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, United States after being rammed by the steamer John Pridgeon Jr. with the loss of five lives. On January 7, 2019, the wreck of Selah Chamberlain was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and was given the reference number 100003288. She was the first shipwreck listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2019.
USS Jicarilla (ATF-104) was Abnaki-class tugboat during the World War II. The ship was later sold to Colombia as ARC Sebastián De Belalcázar (RM-73). Her namesake is a group of the Apache tribe found in the southwestern United States.
The Argo is a tank barge that sank in Lake Erie on October 20, 1937. It was carrying nearly 200,000 gallons of crude oil and benzol when it foundered in a storm off of Pelee Island. The Argo was not designed for open waters. In 2013 the wreck was assessed to be the Great Lakes shipwreck most likely to create an environmental disaster. The wreck sat at the bottom of the lake for nearly 78 years before it was discovered in 2015. A three-month cleanup effort involving the U.S. Coast Guard, Canadian authorities, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration extracted nearly 50,000 gallons of contaminated water from the wreck.
United States
