Toasting the Tanks

One of the watermen said that this is 100 feet longer than a football field
with each barge being 190 feet long, plus the 1200 hp tug

We ended up at a sort of an accidental party last night and it sure was fun. We met some nice new folks, got to catch up with farmer neighbors we live a couple of miles from but rarely actually see and had a heckin good time watching skilled watermen move gigantic beer tank barges through Lock 12 in Tribes Hill.

The pros

About the company

The story of what was going on is here. And here is a list of barge terminology, which I thought was interesting. 

These young men work really hard

We had hoped to catch the barges passing by as we are right near the river, but it had kind of slipped my mind until I saw a video of them passing Amsterdam yesterday evening. I called the boss and he was willing and off we went.

We hit all our favorite river spots, and finally decided upon Lock 12 as the best vantage, with the added possibility of watching the barges.

Pretty cool that this young man could move the whole shebang closer to shore just by stepping on this line

If you would like to see the tanks yourself, here is a tentative schedule.

And here is another story about the story.

First thing this morning I went out to hang up some laundry. Came a now-familiar rumble of a really big engine. I looked down through the trees at the Mighty Mohawk and there were the barges, going right past our house.