M/V Leslie M. Neal

It took us a few years and in the end, we had to fight twilight, but this evening Adam and I saw the Crounse towboat Leslie M. Neal in our area.

Now, having seen the Linda Reed, Paula Ruble, Janis R. Brewer, the Jackie Englert and the Leslie M. Neal, that means we've seen all five of the newer Crounse boats. The first two are frequent visitors to our area. The last three, not so much.

The Leslie M. Neal was built in 2010, so it's been a long wait.

For those interested in the details, it was built for Crounse Corp. by Eastern Shipbuilding Group of Panama City, Florida. It is 140 feet long and 34 feet wide, making it one foot narrow than the typical open hopper barge it pushes. The boat is powered by two GM 8-710 diesel engines generating 4,000 total horsepower.

This evening it was pushing pretty hard against the current. The river was high and rising. It and the M/V Kentucky were generating some strong prop wash even though they might have been going maybe 2 or 2.5 mph at most.