Capt Crunch

Capt. Crunch

A true story by Erick Sahler

Tugboats are like the tortoise in the old fable. Slow and steady wins the race. They’ve got one speed and they don’t take kindly to stopping or changing direction.

I learned this firsthand the summer after seventh grade, when I spent two weeks aboard the tugboat Holly S.

My dad and my uncle were half of the four-man crew, and I was allowed to live with them while they worked.

There was only one rule. Don’t fall overboard.

“Chances are we won’t see or hear you,” they warned me. “And even if we did, we can’t stop or turn back.”

The Holly pushed petroleum barges from Norfolk to Baltimore to Philadelphia and back.

Life aboard comprised long hours of boredom broken by moments of sheer terror.

Sailing the southern Chesapeake was like crossing the ocean. It’s so broad, there’s water from horizon to horizon. Even TV signals don’t reach the middle of the bay.

To entertain myself, I climbed on the barge and walked its football-field length. The steady chug of the Holly’s twin diesel engines faded behind me. Then I could hear the waves below as they gently slapped against the bow. A bell buoy, rocked by waves, clanked softly in the distance.

Docking, on the other hand, was a hair-raising experience. Sidling two massive vessels bound by thick cables to a pier in strong currents or high wind was terrifying. Men shouted as heavy lines were tossed in quick succession. One slip and a man could be crushed or drowned instantly.

This is why I made myself at home in the wheelhouse, away from the danger.

Or so I thought.

It was a sunny afternoon as we sailed north with a barge bound for Baltimore. The Bay Bridge loomed ahead and recreational boaters raced around us like wild hares.

I joined Capt. Raymond in the wheelhouse to take in the view.

The wheelhouse is the command center on the top deck of the tugboat. Windows fill the upper halves of all four walls, and below, facing forward, is a cockpit with dozens of switches and levers to operate the boat.

The odd thing about a wheelhouse is there’s no wheel. The rudders that steer the tugboat are adjusted by the captain using a metal box about the size of a bar of soap. It has two small buttons mounted side by side, one for turning left, the other for turning right.

As we approached the Bay Bridge, Capt. Raymond fine-tuned our course, like a teenager playing a video game.

Tap. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.

Except instead of manipulating pixels on a screen, he was guiding a barge filled with a half-million gallons of scalding hot liquid asphalt.

Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.

Then he was gone.

“Take her,” he said, popping off his seat and hustling down the stairs. He probably needed a pee.

I was alone in the wheelhouse as the Holly churned toward the Bay Bridge. Capt. Raymond had the barge pointed directly in the center of the shipping channel, marked by the bridge’s two tallest towers.

Chug. Chug. Chug.

And then it looked like we were slightly off center. Just a hair, maybe, to the left.

Chug. Chug. Chug.

It started to worry me.

I picked up the metal box and considered tapping the button on the right.

Chug. Chug. Chug.

I looked up. The Bay Bridge was growing bigger in our window, and we were clearly headed off center to the left.

My OCD kicked in.

Do something. Now.

I tapped the right button. Just a tap. Like hitting the spacebar. Except maybe in my anxious state, I held it longer than I intended.

EEEERRRRRGGGGGGG. With a deep groan and prolonged creaking, I watched in horror as the barge pivoted around sharply. Half a minute later we were aimed directly at the right tower of the Bay Bridge and closing in fast.

Chug. Chug. Chug.

I froze.

What to do? What to do?

Tap the left button?

Holler for help?

Confess my sins?

I could see traffic on the bridge. When we crashed through the tower, they’d rain down on us. Cars and trucks and buses splashing and sinking into the bay, like Matchbox toys dropped into a bathtub. The carnage of dozens — maybe hundreds — of people dead and injured. An environmental catastrophe. Traffic snarled for months. Lawsuits for years. They’d never let me back on the Holly again.

Chug. Chug. Chug.

I was picturing an asphalt-soaked cormorant when the wheelhouse spun around me. My vision flickered and started to go dark. I smelled coffee.

Wait. I smelled coffee?

Then a steaming mug, followed by Capt. Raymond’s arm, appeared rising up the wheelhouse stairs.

Back in his seat, he surveyed the scene, and tap-tap-tapped the buttons.

The barge slowly came around to the center of the channel.

Maybe he knew what I had done.

Or maybe he thought it was the work of the currents or the wind.

Or maybe after years at the helm, this was business as usual — one more crisis calmly averted by a steady old salt.

He sipped his coffee and we sat in silence as the two spans of the Bay Bridge glided overhead.

Afterward, I excused myself.

I needed a pee.

In the summer after seventh grade, I was left alone in the wheelhouse to navigate a tugboat and barge beneath the twin spans of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.