Damen newcomer at Ontario port has line on versatility

Capt. Joe Farish eased the tugboat Sheri Lynn S. off the Picton Terminals dock before 0730. It had snowed overnight, and the channel in from Lake Ontario was smooth on the calm, overcast December morning.

- Will Van Dorp

With the tug’s full vision wheelhouse, Farish had visibility all around him. Looking forward, he could see one deckhand readying lines on the port bow, and he could turn to spot the other clearing the remaining snow and ice off the spacious aft deck. Through the sky windows, an indispensable feature when docking and undocking ships, a crane and the top of the cliff beyond were visible.

The tug broke through ice near the dock while awaiting assist instructions from the bulk carrier Lake Erie. Radar and AIS displays showed the ship less than a mile off, invisible until first a gray shape appeared, followed a few seconds later by the ship’s navigation lights. Two days earlier, the first ice of the season had formed on the narrow end of the bay west of the Ontario port near the town of Picton. East of the terminals and toward Lake Ontario, ice had only formed overnight and was not yet covered by snow. Deck hands John “Sparky” Van Koughnett and Mike Lees had cleared all of the snow and ice from the tug’s open workspace and readied the lines.

“Lake Erie, Sheri Lynn S. What is your intention?” radioed Farish, and a few seconds later came the response, “Sheri Lynn, we’re going starboard side to.”

Sheri Lynn S., a Damen 1606 Stan ICE-class tug, has worked the northeast corner of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River as far downstream as Montreal since being delivered in November 2017. The Canadaflagged tug, owned and operated by H.R. Doornekamp Construction Ltd., was built at a shipyard in Hunan, China. That Damen yard, one of 36 around the world, is located more than 700 miles from the sea on the Yuan River, a tributary of the Yangtze. The Stan designation refers to standard designs of different sizes ranging from the tiny 1004 (35 feet long) to the massive 4013 (133.6 feet long).