Tug Sinks in Port of Brownsville

[Michael Martin]

News from my last place of work in the Port of Brownsville.

Towboat sinks at Port of Brownsville
August 28, 2008 - 8:55PM
By Emma Perez-Trevino, The Brownsville Herald

   Approximately 2,000 gallons of diesel was spilled at the Port of Brownsville Saturday when a Signet towboat sank.
   The sunken towboat was raised using an AmFELS crane and almost all the diesel fuel was contained and recovered, U.S. Coast Guard marine casualty investigator Troy Rentz said.
   "They contained it. They immediately put a boom around it," Deputy Port Director Donna Eymard said. "There was no contamination."
   Initially, no injuries were reported, but subsequently there were reports of three crewmen who had possibly sustained minor injuries.
   The towboat succumbed to the strength of water-surge propelled from six passing towboats moving a rig at the Keppel AmFELS shipyard.
   Rentz said Thursday that he has not concluded his investigation into the incident, which occurred at 8:30 a.m. Saturday.
   Three men were on the towboat, but they were able to climb aboard a boat.
"They all got off safely," Rentz said.

The description is a little wrong. Six tugs pushing a floating rig wouldn't necessarily sink a tug. What I heard was that the yard was launching a new build Scorpion jackup in the channel and Signet had a pushboat keeping a new build vessel up against the dock as the rig was launched. Even though the ways are not directly adjacent to the where the Signet tug was pushing, when the big broad bow wave came with the launch, the ship at the dock rose and fell 4 to 5 feet. The pushboat against the hull, pivoted up with it, water passed over her stern where on a pushboat there is hardly any freeboard, and flooded down an open hatch into the engine room. Apparently from what I was told she sank in seconds. Good that the crew got off.