At the invitation of Southern Towing's president Bill Stegbauer, I boarded M/V David Stegbauer one day in late 2008 on its delivery voyage from New Orleans to Memphis, Tenn. The boat had picked up two empty 295-foot tank barges in Mobile, Ala., and had brought them acrossrnto the Mississippi before starting upriver. Capt. Stephen Wage sent engineer Tom McCoin with a Zodiac rigid-hulled inflatable ashore to pick me up in the Industrial Canal at the Port of New Orleans.rnAs he eased the tow into the lock that joins the Industrial Canal to the Mississippi, Capt. Wage illus-rntrated the ease with which the tow could be positioned. What was immediately remarkable to an observer was the lack of vibration when "backing down." (That may not be the correct term as the operator simply rotates the control units 180 degrees and the thrust is reversed.) "The props are tuned to go just one way so they are more efficient and smoother," said Wage. "They don't need to compromise the pitch between forward and reverse thrust as you would on a conventional towboat. This is a lot easier, you can just turn the drives and ease it in without a lot of shifting and banging around."
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