Sunday, June 7, 2015

M/V Michael D .. and a vocabulary question

This past Friday I had to run up to the Point Pleasant River Museum and Learning Center for something. As I parked my car I heard a boat coming out of the Kanawha. It was the Michael D pushing some empties. As it passed me, it turned to head up the Ohio.






My question: What do you call a boat the size of the Michael D? I'm guessing it's too small to be a line haul boat or whatever the big ones are called nowadays, and it's too big to be a dinner bucket boat. That's what an old guy told me about 35 years ago when he was describing the small boat he worked on. It never left the harbor or port where it moved barges around.

So what do you call it?


2 comments:

Richard James said...

That is a "Go Up and Fetch It". Pronounced, "gwupnfetchit".

Unknown said...

I actually had the pleasure working on this vessel for 5 years or so but to answer your question we call them TugBoats TugBoats are the ones that build the Big 12 to 15 barge toes for the big boats call LineHaul boats which the crew stays on the boat for weeks and run the toes to power plants and such