Have you ever noticed a big barge being pushed down a river and wondered where it was going? I saw one recently while vacationing and it gave me the idea to learn more about tugboats and towboats. A tugboat helps big ships dock, but a towboat is what pushes barges up and down the waterways. Our nation has over 25,000 miles of inland and intercoastal waterways, and towboats provide an economical means of transportation. It is also the most environmentally friendly mode of surface transportation. Rick Snow has worked for Parker Towing Company in Alabama for 30 years. I spoke with him to learn more about what it’s like to be a towboat captain.
TRUMAN: What does it take to become a towboat captain?
SNOW: There are no particular educational requirements as far as schoolwork is concerned. But, to be a towboat pilot or master, you do have to be licensed by the United States Coast Guard. To do that, you have to pass a series of four tests having to do with the “rules if the road.” These are the laws of navigation that pertain to the river system and the waterways, and all shipping in and around ports and up and down the riverways — things like who has the right of way, what kind of lights you have to have on the boats when you are running at night, those kind of things. You have to understand weather systems and how it will effect your particular tow. You have to know about navigation and be able to look on a radar screen and tell what the water is doing and which way you are traveling. You also have to know general safety kinds of things. You have to take those tests to get your steersman license. A steersman is allowed to drive boats but has to have a master in the wheelhouse, under whom the steersman works. To get that steersman license, you have to be working on the river a total of 18 months; that can be as a deckhand or an engineer. After you get the steersman license, you have to spend a minimum of 12 months learning the river your on and how to operate the boat. Once you have that experience, then you can upgrade to be a pilot. A pilot can stand watch on his own and be in the wheelhouse by himself — he operates the boat — but there still has to be a master on the vessel. After 48 months — four years — the pilot can upgrade to a masters license. It takes a lot of time and experience. And then you have to renew your license every five years.
TRUMAN: What’s it like working on the river? Do you have to be gone for great lengths of time?
SNOW: Different companies work different rotations. But here at Parker Towing Company, we are on the boat and away from home for 20 days, and then you have 10 days off. Although you are outside a lot and in a wide-open space on the river, you are confined to a small boat for long periods of time. There’s generally six to eight people on the boat, so you’ve got to be able to do your job and to get along with other people. It’s almost like being in a small family that works together 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So you do have to be able to get along.
TRUMAN: When did you become interested in working on the river as a towboat captain?
SNOW: I grew up with it. My grandparents lived on the river when I was young, and it always fascinated me to see the boats going up and down the river. My grandfather ran a ferry near Birmingham. After I graduated from the University of Alabama and worked different jobs for a while, I had the opportunity to try it out. I started as a deckhand and really enjoyed it, so I stuck with it.
TRUMAN: What’s a typical day like as a towboat captain?
SNOW: Normally, the day is split up into four different watches. A watch is six hours long. The master or captain will usually take the noon to 6 p.m. watch, and then work again from midnight to six in the morning. So you work 12 hours a day, but it’s split up into six hours at a time. While you are off, you have to take care of everyday things like eating, sleeping, laundry — everything a normal person would do while at home. While you are standing watch, it could be anything from being at a loading site while at port where we load coal, shifting barges, putting the barges together, or you could have six hours of going down the river and enjoying yourself. Intermittently, you’ll have to clear bridges or go through locks where dams are; no one watch is ever exactly like the watch before. It’s always something different.
It depends on where you are, what river system you are on, the weather — all those kinds of things. It’s a new day every time you wake up. Our company primarily travels three river systems: the Mobile River, the Black Warrior River and the Tombigbee River. But we’ll go wherever our customers need us to go.
TRUMAN: So other businesses hire the towboat company to deliver products?
SNOW: That’s right. Our largest customer is power plants. We serve two main generating plants and haul coal in for them. But we also do things for other types of businesses. For the steel mill, we bring in scrap steel and iron, but we also take out finished product for them, too. From Tuscaloosa, we’ll go to Houston, Arkansas, wherever they need us to take it.
TRUMAN: Is a towboat like a tugboat in that it’s not real fast, but it’s strong?
SNOW: That’s right. You generally go down the river at about five to seven miles per hour, which is like a fast walk. We can’t get you anything in a hurry, but if you want something in a week and a lot of it, we can do that. Our barges hold 1,500 tons — your average truck holds 30 tons. We normally push eight barge tows, so that’s 12,000 tons at a time. We can go about 400 miles in three days with those 12,000 tons. And, we use less diesel fuel to move a ton of coal than any other type of transportation.
TRUMAN: What’s the worst part of this job?
SNOW: Being away from your family, not knowing what’s happening at home, missing your kids growing up. It's tough. That’s one of the reasons I chose to get off the boat and come into the office in my current position.
The other part is, to drive a boat, you’ve got to know all of the waterways wherever you go, both northbound and southbound, during the day and at night. You’ve got to know them when the water’s high and the currents are strong. You’ve got to know what to do when you are in strong currents. You’ve got to know what to do when the wind’s blowing real hard. The variation in the weather probably causes you more problems than anything else. It can change so fast that you’ve got to be able to adjust quickly.
TRUMAN: It sounds like you have to know an awful lot to get your barges safely to their destination. What’s the best part of your job?
SNOW: Well, for me, you’re kind of in a self-contained world. You don’t have to worry too much about paying bills and all the kind of routine things that you do when you are at home all the time. You know what you have to do when you get up, and you go ahead and do that job. You don’t have to worry about what’s going on in the outside world
TRUMAN: What kind of advice would you give to kids who might be interested in working on a towboat one day?
SNOW: I’d encourage anybody to do this. It’s a good-paying job with excellent benefits. The most important thing to do is to learn skills like mechanics and how to work on engines; learn how be self-sufficient. You can’t stand back and wait till someone else does it for you. You have to learn how to do it yourself. If something breaks down on the river, there’s not very many people you can call. Be willing to work hard in all kinds of weather. As they say, “It never rains on the river.”
TRUMAN: Thank you so much for talking to me about towboats and what it takes to be a towboat captain! I’ll let you get back to the river!
Special thanks to Mike Woodard and Kidsville News of Tuscaloosa.
