Tugboat Iver

The Salon

2011-11-16T08:46:00.000-08:00

Basically the cabin is one large (well not so large, but big enough) room. It's 8 ft wide and about 16 ft long, with the galley aft. When we first bought the tug we thought we would be adding on to the cabin but after living aboard for over a year we found that we just don't need extra room and we like the original lines of the tug.

We built a settee (boat for couch) by re purposing a desk Bill had built for me out of a pallet. It was a very nice pallet, solid oak. The desk top was a chunk of lab table top (you know the stuff from chemistry class) that was salvaged from a construction site. We used that in the stateroom on top of the dresser. We made the settee with space underneath for the dogs (they're small) that's where we put their water and food dishes. For the cushion we cut down a foam mattress we had lying around, this way the settee can also be used as a guest bunk. Eventually we'll have the cushions professionally upholstered, but for now the futon cover works fine.

The wall opposite the settee is the stack, all the exhaust piping from the engine room (engine and genset) go up through the stack. On that wall we built in our entertainment center. We had a large flat screen tv before we bought the boat, so we just built it to fit.

To the right of the built-in is a door, this covers a space next to the stack that is now useable as a locker. There's a door to the outside, so it can be a wet or dry locker, creating storage from what had been an unusable space. The wood we used is mahogany, it was salvaged from a house on Lake Washington. The cabinets provide much needed storage for laptops.
For the floor we laid down a bunch of carpet tiles we picked up at the re-use store. Future plans call for a nice T&G solid wood floor to cover the plywood.

The Stateroom

2011-11-14T12:54:00.000-08:00

Now that we had a working galley and head, we started on the stateroom. It's a pretty big space, so we were able to build in a queen size bed as well as plenty of storage for clothes.

We couldn't figure out how to get a conventional mattress down the narrow stairs to the stateroom, so we went with a sleep number bed. It came apart and was easily assembled down in the stateroom. Very comfy.

We found a really good deal on a bunch of cherry wood, so the hanging locker, dresser drawers and shelving unit with doors are all made from cherry.

The black plastic on the ceiling is there to keep debris from falling on us while we replace the decking on the bow.

The head

2011-11-14T12:41:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not, the head has a large jetted jacuzi tub. It was installed before the walls were put up so getting that sucker out was not an option.

There was no back wall at the edge of the tub, so if you took a shower the water could splash onto the only electric outlet in the room. The sink and vanity was too big, in fact half the door trim was removed to make it fit. And to make it totally unusable as a head, the toilet was plumbed directly out the side of the boat. yuck! So what to do about the toilet? We would have to add a black water tank in the engine room and then run a pipe out to the deck to pump out the tank. Sounded pretty simple until we measured the opening of the hatch to the engine room. We couldn't get a very big tank down there, so we would have to pump out quite often, maybe once or even twice a week. There is no pump out at our boatyard, so we would have to pay someone to come on a boat and pump us out. That would be about $600 a year or more. So I started doing research on alternatives. We could put in a waste water treatment system, they can be quite expensive and still might not be in compliance with the no discharge laws in the area. Then I looked into dry composting toilets, at the time there were two companies that manufacture composting toilets specifically for boats, both are kind of expensive, around $1,000.00. Household composting toilets were just as expensive, so I looked into DIY options. I found a kit online for just $112.00, a few pieces of scrap plywood and a couple of containers and we had our new dry composting marine head. Not all the crew was on board, it took me 2 months to convince Bill that this was the best solution for our problem. He is now a complete convert and we are planning on doing the same thing in our sailboat. The toilet is easy to maintain, there is no head smell and the cost was a fraction of what all the other alternatives would have been.

Here's what the new dry composting toilet looks like.....

This is a regular seat and lid.

The solid waste goes into the aluminum pot, we've added a metal rod to mix the peat moss. The liquid goes into a plastic kitty litter container.

This is the kit that separates the liquids from solids, and makes this a dry composting toilet.

I put a rubber gasket on the lid to seal the unit and painted the outside of the blue separating kit piece white to match the seat. We later added a small computer fan on the side that vents into the stack. Just a small amount of air moving will help with the drying process.

We empty the liquid container every couple of days and the solids container every 4 to 6 weeks. We have used peat moss, cocoanut coir bricks and recently sawdust from our planer as a medium in the solids bin. All work just fine.

We wanted to remove and replace the tub, but it's ginormous and would have been a real PITA to get it out. We thought about cutting it apart with the sawzall but decided to just live with it for the time being. We replaced the shower head (which came up to my clavicle) with a hand shower head, so that brought the shower head up high enough we didn't have to crouch to wash our hair. We then added a new wall at the end of the tub which also added more storage. You may be wondering why we were not thrilled with having a jacuzzi jet tub in our boat, well we did fill it up and turn it on one day, it sounded like a briggs and stratton lawn mower engine and it took almost 30 minutes to fill up, very relaxing. :) But as a shower it turned out to be okay. We also replaced the large vanity with a half sized one, moved the medicine cabinet from the opposite wall and I used old charts to cover the wall damage from the large mirror the PO had adhered to the wall with liquid nails.

Getting Started

2011-11-14T09:22:00.000-08:00

Once we bought the boat the first thing to address was the deck, like most old wooden boats, she leaks from above. So we quickly put a layer of plywood and a couple of layers of Gaco deck sealer on the outside decks. We only had a couple of weeks until the Seattle rainy season started so we had to work fast.

After sealing the decks as best we could, we started on the interior. Our goal was to live aboard as soon as possible. The interior of the tug was not original, the previous owner had built in a kitchen area and had converted the captains cabin into a head. The fo'c'sle (bow area) was the sleeping area or stateroom.

Galley

Head

fo'c'sle (stateroom)

We tackled the galley first, the counter tops were too high, there were no drawers and the stove/oven was a tiny electric thing that was just not going to cut it for every day cooking. So it all had to come out.

Bill built brand new cabinets with drawers. We relocated the sink from the exact middle to off to one side to get more counter space and put the microwave under the counter.

We replaced the tiny electric boat stove with a full size gas oven (converted to propane) and lowered the counter top to a standard height. Red formica went on top of the counters and what would have been dead space between the stove and fridge, we turned into a pantry can drawer.

We bought some white subway tiles at the re-store and to add a little color to the back splash, I decoupaged photos to a few of the tiles. I painted some small boat cleats red and used them for our cabinet hardware. We now have plenty of storage in the galley.

Next up, the head.......

The scariest part.....

2010-05-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

Most people are afraid of wood boats, they think they'll rot and sink or something, I'm not sure. Wood does not scare us, we can fix wood. We have the tools, we have the technology, we can fix it. :) The engine on the other hand scared the heck out of me, it's really big. But Jason assured us he would be around and show us how to start, maintain and run the power plant that lives in the belly of Iver. That was key in our decision to buy the tug. Without having a ships engineer on call, we would not have considered buying the tug.

The engine room

In this photo Bill is working on the generator, a 32KW noisy giant piece of machinery, you can see the size of the Enterprise DMG6 diesel engine. Yes, you can still get parts for this beast. The cylinders are 12" and it generates 400 hp. It's a direct reversing engine, that means there is no neutral, if you want to change from moving forward to going in reverse, you must first stop the engine and restart in reverse. The engine does not have a starter like a car, it uses compressed air to start. The generator is needed to run the air compressor, there are three very large air tanks. We need at least 120 lbs of air to start the engine, air is also used to help with the steering (air assist) and to run the massive anchor winch. The compressor is a very important piece of machinery.
Having grown up on farms (or ranches as they are called in California) Bill is familiar with big diesel engines, this one is very similar to the big cat tractors he used to drive around the ranch as a kid. It didn't scare him quite as much as it scared me. :) I'm good with Volkswagens.
This is Iver's third engine, it was installed in 1954 so it's fairly new. :)

Specs and a little history.

2010-05-20T11:49:00.000-07:00

The boat is 70 ft LOA (length overall) with a beam (width) of 16ft and a draft (what's under the water) of 8.5 ft. The cabin is only 8 ft wide, so it makes for a long narrow room. The tug is powered by an Enterprise DMG6 diesel engine. It's the tug's third engine and was installed in 1954. It still runs like a champ and even though it's the size of a Volkswagen bus, it is surprisingly fuel efficient. Remember tugboats are all about torque, not speed. The engine should burn about 6 gal. an hour at cruising speed (around 7-8 knots).

Iver was designed by L.H. Coolidge of Seattle built in 1925 by the Port Angeles Sand and Gravel CO. in Port Angeles, WA. She was called the Angeles and was used to tow gravel scows. She was completed in July of 1925 and for the next 10 months worked towing sand and gravel scows. In May of 1926 the Foss Tug and Barge Co. bought the assets of the Port Angeles Sand and Gravel Co. and with them acquired the Angeles. The tug was renamed Iver Foss, in honor of Foss Co. founder Andrew Foss' younger brother. For the next 47 yrs the Iver Foss worked the Puget Sound area towing gravel scows, log booms and chip/pulpwood barges. The Iver even towed barges to the Port Townsend paper mill.

The Iver Foss tows a chip barge to the Port Townsend paper mill

But it's most famous tow had to have been as part of the Namu Navy in 1965, towing the enclosure containing Namu the Killer Whale from British Columbia to Seattle. Namu was the first Killer Whale in captivity and was on display on the Seattle waterfront.

The Iver Foss tows Namu through Dodds Narrows

A color photo of the Iver Foss in her Foss green paint, this is also from 1965

In August of 1972 Iver developed engine problems while towing chip scows to Port Townsend. Foss decided to put her in the yard and list her as surplus. In 1974 she was sold to Mr. L.H. Clark of Tenakee, AK. He renamed her Bonney Gal and she worked in Alaska for the next 3 yrs. Then she came back to Puget Sound and was re-christened Marilyn and put to work towing gravel scows for Lone Star Industries to their gravel pit in Steilacoom (below Tacoma) by Bob Waterman. Then she was bought by another small tug company owner, Gary Duff, who changed the A to an E and called her Merilyn after his wife. Gary Duff used to race the Merilyn in the tugboat races and frequently won, she was one of the fastest boats in her class.

The Merilyn pushes the Blueberry out of it's way during the Tug Races

Jason Belshe found her in the late '90's, sitting abandoned and forlorn with blackberry bushes growing into her side. He renamed the tug back to the original name, Angeles and spent the next 10 yrs restoring her and living aboard.

Jason on the Angeles sometime around 1999

Bill and I found her in September of 2009 after seeing an ad on craigslist. We weren't keen on the name Angeles but thought Iver sounded like a good Pacific Northwest Seattle tugboat name, so once again she is called Iver. The Foss company still uses Iver as a name for their boats, at the moment the Iver Foss III is working out of company headquarters in Seattle.

Okay, we're a bit crazy...........

2009-11-09T13:55:00.000-08:00

We went and bought a tugboat, a real tugboat, not one of those fancy tugboat like yacht things, but an honest to god working tugboat. This boat used to tow barges and log rafts up and down the puget sound. It was built in 1925 in Port Angeles for the Port Angeles Sand and Gravel Co., after a year or so it was sold to the Foss Tugboat Co. and spent the next 47 years as a working tug for Foss. It then passed to a couple of other small tug operators and then to Jason, he bought the boat 10yrs ago and had been using it as a liveaboard.

We've been looking at big wooden boats for the last year or so, mainly converted fishing trollers, trawlers and gillnetters in the 30ft to 40ft range. We wanted something big enough to take our kayaks with us when we went cruising. We never considered a tugboat, they're huge, have huge engines for towing, and did I mention how big they are? Huge! But I had been seeing this ad on craigslist for the last few months and when the price dropped considerably I sent the ad to Bill. It was just across the ship canal from our Seattle rental house, so we thought we'd just go take a look. It was love at first sight, we considered the pros and cons for about a week and then jumped in with both feet and bought ourselves a tugboat, a huge wooden tugboat!