Pelican Passage

The Gallup tug Capt Tom worked in Boston on the Big Dig Project and then was sold to Hunt Marine and renamed the Victoria Rose Hunt and worked on the Hub Pipeline Project. One day, off of Nahant, while trying to pull an anchor, the Victoria Rose led her line the wrong way and a swell rolled under her and rolled her over. All three crew got off safely. When she rolled, the ballast in her bilge shifted to her starboard side and kept her on her side on the bottom. She was raised that way and put on the barge in that position. The barge was towed in to our dock in East Boston and then the barge was sunk and we used the Flushing and McDevitt Girls to pull her upright and then off the barge. Unfortunately, we didn't know about the ballast and she stood upright for a minute, but when we let up on the throttles, she setlled over on her side again - this time off of the barge and on the bottom. We had her pretty well sealed up, so we pumped her out and kept her lashed between two barges and worked her up the beach on the tide so that when the tide dropped, we could pump her out, secure her to the barges, equalize the ballast and stabilize her.