Charles W.
Appearances
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
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Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah. Have you ever walked along an old riverway that has those built-up banks for that purpose?
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah, I had my experience doing that in Akron. So that may be an Ohio thing. I believe the waterway through Sand Run is where that was. And it was the same deal. And Emily or her mom or somebody, you know, because you're up higher and, you know, it's an obvious path. And they're like, yeah, this is where the donkeys and pack horses would pull these things.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
There was a paddle steamer named Charlotte Dundas that was the first tugboat in operation towing for the very first trip, I think, two fully loaded sloops, 18 miles along the Fourth and Clyde Canal at Glasgow at a scorching two miles per hour.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
That's all that mattered. Yeah, they had all the time in the world.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
He's bumping into people. They're like, dude.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
That's right. 40 miles inland. So that was a huge boon for London at the time. There was a steamship called the Majestic that worked with the East India Company towing things back and forth up the Thames. And Liverpool had one as well. So they were they were getting in on the game there in the UK. They were.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
I would say Dumbarton, but I don't know. I'm just guessing.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah. And, you know, earlier I was saying that they said, oh, this idea is so dumb. I don't know if it was that it was so dumb, but steam power and stuff that came along a little bit later, like they didn't have steam engines at the time, so they wouldn't have even known it was dangerous. But when they did come online, why do I keep saying that? I don't think it fits. Right.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
I think so. But online doesn't mean just on the Internet. Online just means like it's beginning to function right as a thing.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
That's a good line. Oh, boy, Lenny. It's locked onto my internet. Where was that? Oh, yeah. Steam engines were dangerous. They would blow up a lot. There was, you know, when tugboats first started using, you know, coming online, using that steam, they were like, I don't know. I mean, is it better to have this thing that might blow up a port?
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
That's right, because we're going to sing the unsung like we like to do on the show because no one ever thinks about tugboats. You see them all the time. If you live near a harbor or vacation or visit cities that have harbors, you see those tugboats and those big ships and barges get all the... All the sexy headlines. But those tugboats are doing the yeoman's work.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Oh, man, you almost had it right out of the gate. So now you could get 400 ton ships because, you know, I don't know if we mentioned they were loading like railroad cars onto these things for the first time. So it was very, very heavy stuff. They could go to Newcastle for the first time. All of a sudden people in more distant places could get coal.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
So it wasn't just like, hey, it made, you know, make things cheaper and more efficient. It like was literally changing like lives all over the world.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Comet and Monkey. That'd be a fun cartoon. I'd watch that. Or drug. I'd also take that.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah. And these were paddle boats, by the way, up until the late 19th century. If you're picturing like your little friendly tugboat in your mind as we talk about all these stories, erase that. And now picture a tugboat with two paddles on both sides. It wasn't like the big paddle in the back, like the sort of fun things you ride around on at Stone Mountain Park here in Georgia.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
They were paddle wheels on both sides, which seems a little wider and more cumbersome. But that really, really, really made them much more maneuverable and able to to steer in tighter places and to steer in two different directions. Like, right. I got one of those zero turn lawnmowers. You you. Put those things in two different directions and you're spinning like a top.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
That's right. Shall we take our second break?
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
All right. We took an early one, so we're going to take this one and we're going to come back and talk a little bit about, well, tugboats right after this.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
That's why they call them nautical laborers early in their, I guess, mission when they first started coming online on sea.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
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Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
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Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah, they rationed food. They literally shut the lights down on Broadway. It was their backup plan of just, you know, using smaller boats to ferry stuff in and out. They were just like, Manhattan is far too big for this already.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
And the tugboat operators, I guess, I mean, what a moment to sit back and just sort of like say, yeah. Float? Now, yeah, gloat a little bit. Now, now who is important? The tugboat driver, Thomas, one day we'll be in Atlanta so we could get the word out about tugboats.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
And New York Harbor was a great place to sort of make that point because, you know, if you didn't have tugboats, then those containers with all those goods and services are essentially useless.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah, for sure. You know, they've got electric tugs now.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah, it's a good-looking tug. I mean, it's interesting. I never really thought about electric boats, but that's becoming more and more of a thing, which is kind of awesome.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah. I get it. You know, especially in a place like New York Harbor. Very busy, very busy. So you talked about.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah. What also you need to be is maneuverable because it's very busy, very busy. And you mentioned that a little bit earlier on that they need to be able to move really in any direction very accurately and as quickly as possible. And the asthma thruster was a big change in that because that is a –
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Imagine a propeller inside a housing sort of like a, you know, sort of like an E-fan or something like that. And it can just turn. That's exactly what it looks like.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
But it can turn 360 degrees, so it's not a fixed propeller and a rudder for steering, and it's not even a non-fixed propeller that can move left and right. It's a propeller that can spin in any direction, which means you've got one of those little joystick controllers as a tugboat pilot, and you can inch that thing in the most minute little ways with just a flick of the stick.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Uh, we did mention a lot. I mean, we've talked a lot about moving boats around. That's obviously what you think of when you think of a tugboat. Um, but they do a bunch of other stuff too. Um, salvage operations, uh, SNR, uh, or SAR or search and rescue ops that we've talked a lot about on the show.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Uh, if there's ever a, you know, if there's a busy canal that's blocked or something, uh, or a ship that is gone offline, say that, uh,
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Was it in – did we do one on the Suez Canal or just the – No, I looked.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Which canal did we do the episode on?
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Oh, we did something on canals, right?
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
All right, what else? Firefighting tugboats, of course.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Well, I don't know, Captain. I don't have my sea legs, but Fifi is at least a cutesy name. Fifi is nothing.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Icebreakers. And I don't mean that office parties either.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah. He goes up to and says, if you could invite anyone from history to dinner, who would it be?
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
All right. I'm going to look that up and tell you what I think before the end of the episode. Okay, good. Line handling, too, like these tow ropes, if they're like, hey, we need to get this tow rope out to that ship. You don't just throw it on a guy's shoulder. Like these ropes, like those anchors are the most massive ropes you've ever seen in your life.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
And so there's Thomas saying, just throw it on, guys. I got it. I'll take it out there.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah, I mean, not to undersell tugboats. They are dealing with things that are floating in water, which helps. But these are big, massive things floating in water. Like you could get in a lake, my friend, and you could pull a rope attached to a pontoon boat. What? And you could pull that thing around a little bit. You could swim that thing around a little bit because it's floating in water.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah. You've also got engineers who, you know, they take care of those engines. They take care of all the getting things online, mechanical systems, electrical systems. You have your mate, your second in command and secondary pilot. And then you got that captain, the primary pilot that's running that ship.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
If you work in, let's just pick out New York City because people think about tugboats a lot there in New York Harbor. Do they? Yeah. Yeah, everyone does. Okay.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
They work two-week shifts, two weeks on, two weeks off. You live on that boat full-time. And then on those days that you work, you work two six-hour shifts, six hours working, six hours off, six hours working, six hours off. And I'm sure Thomas would verify that this is tough, hard work.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Would you have them work 12 hours straight and then 12 hours off?
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah, it's whack, but I think it's one of those things with shift work, like you get used to sleeping all day and working at night. Those people probably get used to sleeping in two, four-hour sets.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah, but then they're at home for two weeks straight.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Oh yeah, for sure. There are push boats. These are pretty fun. A push tug. That's a tow boat that has a squared off front at the bow and these padded beams called push knees. And you basically push those knees against the stern and you even lash it together sometimes and you're just pushing something around. Yeah.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
What universe do you live in? That may be where you max out. You are the tugboat of the lake, Josh, if you can do that to a pontoon boat, because these tugboats are little compared to these huge barges that are floating around. Is that making any sense at all?
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Well, it does sort of lend itself to the question of like, why don't these huge barges have a little secondary azimuth propeller system that can be deployed?
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Well, maybe so. And the other thing that I also regret not investigating now is how the finances of this work. Is it a tugboat company that just says, all right, we're going to contract with this barge company for a certain set of time?
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
And we'll just handle all your tugging and pushing needs basically in this harbor?
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Surely it's an all-inclusive thing, though. And it's not just like... Oh, you need to get over there? 500 bucks. Right. You know?
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah. That sounds like a new episode of The Wire, too.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
If you want to pick up your spirits, my friend, go to New York City and take a ride on the W.O. Decker because that's one of the fun things you can do in New York. I have not done it yet, but I'm going to make a point to go to the South Street Seaport Museum in New York where you can actually take a ride on the classic and beautiful W.O. Decker tugboat.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
I got nothing. I just love these pictures. There's something about a tugboat. I like the way they look. Yeah. Got those tires hanging off of them, and there's something about the utilitarian aspect, and especially that W.O. Decker with that big old nose on the front. I don't even know what that is. That's the beard, right? Yeah, but it's not a beard that I've ever seen.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
That'd be better swimming with two arms.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah. Actually, some of these beers are very beardy, so I get it.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
That's right. And it also conjures beetle beard.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
You know, you say beetle juice three times.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Did you see it? Yeah. You know, I enjoyed it. I thought it was fun. It's not some great movie, but none of Tim Burton's movies are great to me. Oh, I don't know about that. I mean, I think Ed Wood was great, but I think that's his only truly great film.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
I enjoyed Edward Scissorhands. I don't think it's great. Sleepy Hollow I thought was mid at best.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
We should tell them what bollard pull is, too, because that's the other big sort of measurement when it comes to tugging and pushing. A bollard, first of all, is that big sort of chunky thing on a dock that you'll tie a boat to, the big daddies. And bollard pull is the total amount of towing force generated by a tugboat. And they measure that in kilonewtons.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah. Hey, I like I like most of his movies, but I just don't think they're great films.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah. But I mean, I like most of his movies.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Anyway, I thought it was that was good. It was fun. It was good enough for what I wanted out of it, which was a bit of nostalgia. And I LOL quite a few times because I just think Michael Keaton is really funny. And Catherine O'Hara is really funny.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah. But, you know, it was it was just OK.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
How do you find movies that no one else has ever heard of?
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Uh, well, Ruby went as Megan for Halloween. So she's pretty into that stuff, but this sounds too dark.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Uh, okay. And I'll also say this. Uh, I just looked up a dark song really quickly and there's a Reddit thread, a dark song. Is it real? So apparently it's pretty convincing.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
All right. So that's been movie minutes.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
No, man, I'm waiting on the cue.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
I got sidetracked. Hey, buddy, I don't jump unless you tell me to.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Oh, that means another lashing tonight.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah, put me up there with the beard.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
All right. Hey, guys. Love the show, especially the Unsolved Mystery episodes. Needless to say, I loved the one a couple of months ago about the mysteries of the Internet and the mysterious song that caught my attention.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Boy, they came pouring in, and I have to say, the mystery seems to have been solved about the most mysterious song on the internet. It is not the one that people sent in right after we published that was not even the same song. Those people were lazy. But yeah, it broke, and we've gotten like 100 emails that that artist has been identified. There's a Reddit thread.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
As a Reddit user tracked it down, the song is called Subways of Your Mind by the group, I don't know if it's Fex or F-E-X. Not sure how they pronounce it. The user found the band from an old newspaper article in the Nordwest Zeitung archive. Wow. While they were researching Hurfest bands, the band that performed at that music festival was a lead the subreddit was working on.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
The article they found was about a band called FEX from Kiel. who won a talent contest in Bremen, September 1984. Their music was described as rock with wave and pop influences. The user managed to get in touch with a member of the band and they produced original tapes of the recorded song to prove they were the ones who recorded it. I read through the subreddit.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
They said, wait a minute before you go wide with this, because I want to talk to the rest of the band first. Came back and said, I talked to the rest of the band. They're into it. And we want to like re-record it and, you know, get back together and re-record this thing. Now that it's got some fame. Yeah, they're going to do an acoustic country version.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
This is for Michael, but big thanks to everybody who wrote in because it's pretty exciting. You know, Somerton Man was found on our watch. On our watch. Right, thanks to us. Thanks to us, and this was solved on our watch. So the longer we do this show, the more these mysteries are kind of... Maybe they'll find that guy who disappeared from the airport. Remember that guy? Oh, yeah.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah, so we're hoping to clear up all these mysteries. But yeah, the mystery song has been solved.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah, and it's going to get worse because this isn't going to come out because we're front-loading for Christmas break, and so we're going to be getting these emails for weeks and weeks and weeks.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Oh, man. Wait till they hear about Jared from Subway and Hugh. Hugh Jackman. Hugh Jackman playing. P.T. Barnum. Who was it? P.T. Barnum.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
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Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
I think they're very attractive boats. You can tell a tugboat because it has, you know, they're built to tug and push. So they have a very wide beam, which is the widest point of the boat. They sit very low in the water, which is called a deep draft. And, you know, they're little short, stubby, wide guys that sit really low. I think they're adorable and cool looking. They're very, very stable.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
They're not tippy at all when, you know, they're bumping against other things. They're pushing other things. And so they have to be just super stable and also love that they have beards. That front bumper or a bow fender, they call it a beard in that lingo. And I think that's pretty great.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah, I think those are additional. I think the front always has a built-in beard.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah, exactly. And I say we take an earlier break. Oh, my gosh. Because we're at a great spot to break here before we talk about the history of these things. You want to do that? Let's break it. All right. Let's break on three.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
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Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
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Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
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Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
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Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
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Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
That's right. Another listener request. These are just kind of pouring in now. Or rather, we're leaning on them more than we have before, I guess. Because they're great ideas. But this one came also from the live show in Atlanta. Yeah. And do you remember this guy? Do you remember his name?
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
All right, I promised talk of history, and here we go, because if you wanted to invent a tugboat, the 18th and 19th centuries was a pretty good time to do it because we were using sailing ships at the time for transporting people and goods and all kinds of things. And those things are gorgeous, beautiful on the water.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
They sailed great out on the high seas, but they did not do well, especially because they were just sailing ships when they got around land in small, tight spaces.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
So they would, you know, you've seen it in movies, they would dock, or not dock, but they would anchor, you know, a couple of hundred feet from shore and then start shuttling people and stuff in little tiny boats because that's about as close as they could safely get. And that's not efficient. Taylor would be rolling over in his grave.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Yeah, I think he was. He was from England, 18th century inventor. His name, no lie, was Jonathan Hulls. That's nuts. It is pretty nuts. And he thought it was like a helper vessel is what he called it. It was powered by a steam engine. But what he was talking about was tugboats. It could tow a sailboat in and out of port. This was in 1737 when he filed for a patent.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
It was called a description and draft of a new invented machine for carrying vessels or ships out of or into any harbor port or river against the wind in tide or in a calm. And it was totally genius. 30 years before James Watt's steam engine hit the scene. Yeah. And everyone was like, what a dumb idea.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
Tugboats for Thomas. And Thomas, I believe, works on tugboats, suggested it. And this has turned out to be just a bread and butter stuff you should know episode.
Stuff You Should Know
Tugboats: Pushing Their Way Around Since 1803
I guess so. All I know is we're getting kicked out of this pub any second now.