On a clear, dark, quiet summer night, the light of the moon shimmering on outer Casco Bay, the 111-foot tug Helen McAllister was proudly doing its work, guiding a massive gasoline barge into Portland Harbor.
Suddenly, before the captain could react, the barge overtook the tug, the towline going taught, flipping the Helen McAllister, sinking it.
The tug went down with six men.
A Coast Guard vessel, along with a civilian boat from Peaks Island, successfully rescued five crewmembers.
Sadly, one crewman couldn’t get out of the wheelhouse and drowned.
The sinking of the tug Helen McAllister was one of those tragic, yet rare, accidents that happen in a dangerous business.
The McAllister family has been operating the marine towing company some 160 years, an anniversary marked by a NewsNation documentary.
McAllister now runs a fleet of 67 tugs and four ferries in 14 U.S. ports, with 900 employees, from Eastport, Maine to San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The Maine tug complement includes the Andrew McAllister, Charles McAllister, Jackie F. McAllister, Nancy McAllister and Roderick McAllister.
“American Made: McAllister Towing guiding ships through harbors for 160 years,” says the News Nation headline.
“McAllister Towing has been the unseen force keeping America’s busiest ports running, nudging massive cargo ships, tankers and ferries safely in and out of harbors up and down the East Coast,” the TV network says. “It is one of the oldest family-owned companies in the United States, still run by the family that founded it.”
The company traces its roots to Capt. James McAllister, who began with a single workboat moving cargo around New York Harbor in the mid-1860s.
“It’s a great legacy,” says fifth-generation company president Buck McAllister. “I think it’s really sort of a responsibility.”
As a kid growing up on High St in So. Portland I use to love watching the Moran tugs guiding tankers and cargo ships in and out of the harbor.. Had a paper route(remember those?) that took me past Story Marine Railway on Front St. It was very impressive to see a tug on the ways, totally out of the water. Two thirds of the boat are below the water line. The good ole days.
As a child and young adult,I grew up watching the Moran tugs being built and maintained at Jacobsons ship yard in Oyster Bay and seeing them moving oil and sand barges on Long Island Sound and Mcallisters in the Atlantic coastal areas,.