For now it's quite small, with around ten tugboats of different sizes and ages tied up alongside Granville Island market. We watch daily out of our window as these plucky little boats push giant tankers and container ships around, so we went down to lend our support and climb on board.
Cranes and winches and thick ropes covered every surface, and given the job they have to do it's little wonder that several were a bit rusty and grimy. Towering over them all was Falcon - a massive, new, space-aged tug that had a lovely air-conditioned bridge full of technical gizmos. At the other end of the scale was the S.S. Master, build in 1922 with an engine bought from Glasgow as WW1 surplus, the only remaining example of a wooden steam powered tug. Unfortunately the Chevron barge doesn't sell coal.
Yes, it's true, we were there at the first ever!
A flock (?) of tugs.
A little thing that's very adept at pushing bigger things around.
Tugs and kisses.
Pretty swish inside!
Checking the outlook.
A tug boat is not a playground! Except when it is, like today.
A special one for Hannah.
No one wants to upset the captain.
This is the Master's steam engine. To change speed you have to turn it off then turn it back on again. Which, given that's the way to fix every computer problem, shows we haven't progressed very far.
If you don't talk to your child about tugs, who will?
