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A towboat is a boat designed for pushing barges. Towboats are characterized by a square bow with steel knees for pushing and powerful engines. They are most often seen on inland waterways where they can push more than 50 large barges lashed together into a tow. Towboats that travel long distances include living quarters for the crew.
TOWBOAT SIZE
Towboats range in size from 600 horsepower up to over 10,000 horsepower. Smaller boats are used in harbors, fleeting areas and around locks while larger boats operate in "line-haul" operations and inter-city routes. Below St. Louis on the Mississippi, the river is open with no locks or impediments other than channel size. So larger boats run this segment of the river with up to 40 or 50 barges. Each barge is usually 195 feet by 35 feet, so 40 barges would be over 1200 feet long and occupy over six acres of area. The longest towboats are 200 feet long.
Above St. Louis and on other rivers such as the Illinois, Ohio, Arkansas, Tennessee and Cumberland, boats can handle only up to 17 barges due the size of lock chambers. These boats tend to be limited to 5000 horsepower.
Towboats in line-haul service operate 24/7 and have the latest in navigational equipment, such as color radar, GPS systems, electronic river charts, and specialized radio communications.
Crews on line-haul boats consist of two pilots, one or two engineers, three to five deckhands who tend to the barges and usually a cook. Each crewmember works six hours on and six hours off and rarely gets off the boat during his thirty days aboard. One of the benefits of "towboating" is the food, wherein three large meals a day are served with freshly made breads and desserts.
Towboats always push the fleet of barges, which are lashed together with thick steel cables. The term towboat arises from steamboat days, when steamboat fortunes began to decline and to survive steamboats began to "tow" wooden barges alongside to earn additional revenue. Eventually the railroad expansion following the Civil War ended the steamboat era.
Not to be confused with the historic boat type with the same name, also called horse-drawn boat.
See also
"Towboat"