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Maritime buffs hitch a ride on tug |
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Sunday, 12 August 2007 17:44 |
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8th annual cruise for the public highlights Port of Wilmington's importanceBy LESLIE A. PAPPAS, The News Journal Posted Saturday, August 11, 2007
Cloudy skies threatened rain but mostly spared the 84 people on board the tugboat Sonie on Thursday evening.The crowd, a mix of port officials and international trade enthusiasts, had climbed aboard the 80-foot river vessel for the World Trade Center Delaware's eighth annual Tug Cruise & Mixer.
The event is held each year to raise awareness of the maritime industry and give the public an inside look at Delaware's Port of Wilmington, said center executive director Rebecca Faber.The port brought in $30.1 million in revenues in fiscal 2007, and port businesses generate as many as 5,800 jobs for Delaware, economic studies have concluded. The Port of Wilmington imports and exports a range of commodities, including fresh fruit, bulk minerals, paper products, building materials and automobiles.Although most of the event's attendees are World Trade Center members or work in port-related businesses, the Tug Cruise is open to anyone.'You just have to get in early because it sells out,'said Faber. 'We've sold out every year.'Wilmington Tug Inc.'s owner Hickman Rowland Jr. has offered a boat each year for the event, making the hour-and-a-half trip from the Port of Wilmington's docks along the Delaware and Christina rivers to Old New Castle and back.'I just think it's neat to give people the chance to get a ride on the river ... and see the port,'said Rowland, when asked why he contributed. 'I get to go for free and have fun.'By the time the tug took off at 6 p.m., a half-dozen Dole employees had already clambered on to the tug's bow, fighting over crab cakes, puffs of chicken cordon bleu, and mini-quesedillas offered by a black-tied server from Greenery Caterers. Fruit companies Dole, Chiquita and the Oppenheimer Group donated bags of pineapples, apples and kiwis as parting gifts.Glen A. Dooley, a manager in global trade services at Wachovia Bank in Philadelphia, said he enjoyed his first ride aboard a tug.'Time went fast,'said Dooley, who got a chance to climb up to the windowed wheelhouse on top of the tug to watch the pilot steer around a coal ship that was docked. 'I thought it was neat to see how they were loading the coal.'Clouds darkened and sputtered toward the end of the ride, but the heavy rain held off. At 7:30 p.m. the tug, floating beside a swarm of gulls swooping low over the river, pulled up to the dock, and the passengers filed back to their cars.Minutes later, the skies began to pour.
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