Outdoors: Sailing/Boating

The gap was narrow and the stakes were high.

A ship carrying 16,400 tons of coal approached the Brightman Street Bridge, between Somerset and Fall River, heading for a power plant on the Taunton River.

And as the drawbridge opened, the challenge became clear. At 508 feet long and 78 feet wide, the Clipper Regal would have just 10 feet of leeway on either side as it passed beneath the bridge.

In such tight quarters, the lumbering bulk carrier needed help to maneuver. And on this brilliant August morning, the Clipper Regal had the best help available: a modern, high-powered tractor-style tugboat named Rainbow.

On older tugs, one propeller pushes from the stern. But Rainbow boasts a pair of props, driven by two 2,500-horsepower engines, that can pivot and push in any direction. That combination of raw power and nimbleness was about to come in handy.

An older tugboat, Resolute, went beneath the bridge first, and that tug's captain took note of steel beams protruding from a bridge support that appeared to be under repair.

"It looks like a can opener," said the Resolute's captain, Douglas Cory.

"It makes it interesting," said Capt. Lawrence J. Palmer, the pilot guiding the Clipper Regal.

Palmer steered the Clipper Regal away from the steel beams on the Fall River side and asked Rainbow's skipper, Gary Oliveira, to nudge the ship in the other direction so it didn't veer too far and hit the bridge support on the Somerset side.

The ship slowly slid past the old, rusting bridge. And as soon as the Clipper Regal was clear, Rainbow began moving the massive carrier so that it would line up with footings for the new Brightman Street Bridge, which is under construction about 1,000 feet to the north.

"This tug is so powerful and so maneuverable that it has added five years to my life," Palmer said afterward, referring to Rainbow. "It has reduced the stress of docking and undocking and going through a bridge."

In the future, he said, "All tugs will be like this."

Rainbow was headline news in the 2005 American Tugboat Review, published each year by Professional Mariner Magazine. "The Biggest, Newest Tug in Rhode Island," the headline read. The article called it "the most modern tug ever to operate in the waters of Narragansett Bay."

While it represents the latest technology, Rainbow is owned by one of the older tugboat companies in the country, the Providence Steamboat Co., founded 125 years ago. The company is headquartered at 1 India St. in Fox Point in Providence, and has a dock on Shaw Street in Fall River.

On the morning it was to meet the Clipper Regal, Rainbow left the Fall River dock along with its older, larger counterpart, Resolute. The Clipper Regal was visible in the distance as it passed beneath the Mount Hope Bridge. And the company's chief operating officer, Michael Mariner, talked about the difficulty of the task at hand.

"There's very little tolerance in bridge openings. You have to be right on the money," Marine said. "If you miss, you are going to take out a bridge. Tugs can bring a lot of power to bear very quickly."

That's particularly true with a tractor tug like the Rainbow.

"Rather than having fixed propellers on a shaft, you have something akin to two giant outboard motors in pods that can pivot 360 degrees," Mariner said. "A conventional tug gets all of its power in forward or reverse, so you have to be 90 degrees to the hull of the ship."

But a tractor tug can push in any direction, and it can push like a bull or a butterfly.

"The nice part about the boat is it has 5,000 horsepower when you want it, but you can push ever so gently," Oliveira said. "And it goes as fast forward as backward."

Rainbow can do jobs that conventional tugs cannot, Mariner said. For example, it could be parallel to a ship and push it sideways, so it's a big help in a narrow berth, he said.

Oliveira said it takes about six months to learn how to drive a tractor tug efficiently. "Some people don't like it," he said, noting that the controls are much different from those of a conventional tug. "The closest thing I can compare it to is a sailboat tiller; if you want to go left you push it to the right."

Only rather than one tiller, you must maneuver a pair of joysticks. "It's a balancing act between the two of them," he said.

At first glance, Oliveira appears to be at the controls of a high-tech video game. The captain's chair is flanked by the two joysticks and a pair of computer screens, which display global positioning system information about where the ship is in the channel.

Rainbow is named for a 1934 America's Cup winner and retains some of the company's traditional touches, such as a gold-colored eagle statue perched on the wheelhouse and white rings on the black exhaust stacks.

As the Clipper Regal approached, Rainbow pulled behind the ship, and crew members tethered the two vessels together with an 18-inch-thick line.

Even when tethered to the stern of a ship, Palmer said, Rainbow has the ability to both steer the ship and slow it down -- something that would be difficult to do with a conventional tug. He emphasized the importance of slowing a ship, saying, "Speed kills."

Mariner described tugboats as "a key safety item in restricted waters," providing the control needed to navigate "narrow channels with recreational boats, obstructions, rocks and dogleg turns."

"When you have products like petroleum," Mariner said, "you've got to be real careful."

The American Tugboat Review article noted that Rainbow could tend liquefied natural gas tankers if Weaver's Cove Energy LLC succeeds in opening an LNG terminal in Fall River, north of the Brightman Street Bridge.

Opponents hoped a federal highway bill that bans demolition of the old bridge would kill the project, but now Weaver's Cove Energy LLC has proposed using smaller tankers that would fit through the old bridge's opening.

Mariner was reluctant to discuss the controversial project, other than to say, "If there is an LNG site, we'd hope to do the work. Some may argue location, but we need the product."

On this day, the cargo was coal -- tons of coal from Venezuela, on a ship flying a Bahamian flag and with a crew from India.

Members of Rainbow's crew compared tugs to workhorses and farm tractors -- the tools needed to move things that are too big for the roads. "A farm tractor is all engine, and that's what a tugboat is," said David Whitney, Rainbow's engineer.

"You name it, and it's being put in barges somewhere around the world," said Bruce Gifford, deckhand/mate. He mentioned sand, oil, lumber, steel, mud from dredging, salt for roads, even houses.

When the Clipper Regal reached Somerset Station (formerly the Montaup Electric plant), Rainbow and Resolute helped to turn the ship around and pin it against the pier so the coal could be unloaded.

Oliveira said there is satisfaction in completing a task using the latest in tugboat technology. "The boat is just so much more capable," he said. "When you do a job and you know it would be impossible with a conventional boat, it's a thrill of adequacy."

Boat Specs

Name: Rainbow

Type: Tractor tug

Owner: Providence Steamboat Co.

Length: 92 feet

Width: 32 feet

Draft: 14 feet

Engines: Two 2,500-horsepower Caterpillar 3516HD diesels

Top speed: 14 knots

Bollard pull: 65 tons

Purchased: 2004

Builder: Washburn & Doughty, East Boothbay, Maine

Best boating moment: "When you do a job you know would be impossible with a conventional boat," Capt.Gary Oliveira said, "it's a thrill of adequacy."

Worst boating moment: When debris gets caught in the propellers.

EXTRA: Browse previous stories in this series, find useful resources for mariners and share your boating adventures, at: http://projo.com/afloat

efitzpat@projo.com / (401) 277-7368