Tug boat beard

[maa. melee]

Can anyone supply some info. on that braided/weaved rope (sometimes seaweed (way back then)) fender on the bow (more specifically, the stem peak) on a tug boat? I can see how it's necessary for both tugboat and second party for nudging and boat-to-boat contact. Is it simply a mass of rope draped and weaved?? Slightly confused here. :confused: Know how it's made?
Melee

[ 10-21-2004, 12:28 PM: Message edited by: maa. melee ]

[Buddy]

It's often called "pudding". They are made by knitting half hitches with old rope over rope strands and sometimes wire cable for a big one. The dangling look comes from wear as the old manila deteriorates from rot and friction. New ones from new manila takes a long time to getthe look. Mine on my Boston Whaler are 16 years old and just now getting appropriately shaggy. Most yacht applications use new manila and often polypropylene in an authenic color. Working tugs have long since gone to tire or purpose made rubber fenders. No old rope and cheap labor hanging around looking for busy work.

[mmd]

Ashley describes a towboat bow fender as being similar to a pudding. He also describes how it is fabricated in his book, The Ashley Book of Knots", pp. 555, knot #3503.

[Ian McColgin]

Before I made mate, one of my Captains discovered that I could do this. All of our tugs had black rubber bow puddens and we had to put out canvass when we were docking non-black vessels, so my Captian thought it would be well . . .

I scrounged all the spent line I needed at our base, hack sawed it to suitable 6' lengths and began the laborious process of seperating. At the same time, depending on weather and if it was night or day I worked on the net base. We pushed the tug for fourteen day hitches working watch on watch, six on six off around the clock with a crew of engineer with no fixed watch, Captain and one deckie both 12 - 6 watches and Mate and other deckie both 6 - 12's. Took me one whole hitch to get the bits ready. Spread it on the wheelhouse roof and took another hitch to put it together.

Then we had to get a crane to get the fool thing in place as it weighed perhaps 800#.

All the white ship captains loved us but all the other deckies hated me as they had, added to an already onerous schedule, to comb the beard.

But it was more fun than chipping paint.