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The Harbor Line |
The Great Lakes Towing Company, more commonly known as “The Towing Company,” the oldest member of the newly formed “Great Lakes Group” headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, has played a major role on the Great Lakes since its incorporation on July 7, 1899. The Towing Company’s founding shareholders include many of the nation’s great industrialists, including John D. Rockefeller and James R. Sinclair.
As a result of consolidation, the company started its first navigating season with more than 150 tugboats and has been a significant link in one of the major economic lifelines of North America — the Great Lakes Seaway System. The Towing Company now owns and operates 50 tugboats and is the largest U. S.-flag Tugboat Company engaged in towing on the Great Lakes. The company’s recognizable green-hulled, redcabined Great Lakes fleet is distinguished by the prominent “G” on the stacks and named, with few exceptions, for states of the United States. The specially designed Company tugs are low profile to speed bridge clearance and minimize delays. Ranging in size from 81 to 85 feet, the boats have a 12-to 13-foot draft, faired hulls and kort nozzles, and can provide up to 57,000 pounds of bollard pull. The Towing Company’s tugboats serve Duluth-Superior and more than 35 U. S. ports in all eight U. S. Great Lakes states as well as the St. Lawrence Seaway. Their reach on the Great Lakes extends over more than 8,300 miles of shoreline, encompassing a water surface area of roughly 100,000 square miles — including half of all the fresh water in the world. No other towing company can match this range of service. The Company’s success is due partly to its state-of-the-art operations center, which includes centralized, 24-hour control of its vast operating area. This is maintained though a Communications and Tracking Center, the only one of its kind, located in its corporate headquarters in Cleveland. This Center allows the Towing Company to provide its customers the highest standards of service - its record of timely performance and safety is unmatched in the industry. The Towing Company owns and operates a commercial shipyard, a drydock, and docking facilities specializing in all types of marine repair service for tugboats (including its own fleet), supply boats, ferries, barges, excursion vessels, large yachts and many other types of vessels, including topside repairs of larger domestic and foreign vessels. Since 1900, the year of the Towing Company’s first full navigating season, the Port of Duluth-Superior has been an important part of the Company’s history and remains one of its most significant ports of operation. A former resident of Duluth, Captain Augustus Wolvin, was instrumental in the early success of the Towing Company, originally working as an unofficial agent for the Company before it was formally established by negotiating the purchase of certain vessels and docks for the organizers of the Company. After 100 years the Port of DuluthSuperior remains a cornerstone of The Towing Company’s operations. However, new challenges face the Towing Company; challenges distinct to the volume of cargo tonnage. The volume of its traditional tug business in the Port of Duluth-Superior, as in other Great Lakes ports, has fluctuated wide from year to year, and on average, over the last five-year period, appears to have a slightly downward trend. The challenge for the future is to develop new ways to provide services at lower overall volumes while optimizing costs and pricing — all without sacrificing the Company’s tradition quality of service and safety. Looking toward the future, the Towing Company is committed to the Great Lakes region, its home for the past 100 years, but the company plans also include expansion of its operations beyond the Great Lakes in order to maintain its growth and viability. |
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