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UNITED STATES SHIPPING BOARD OCEAN TUG PROGRAM, WORLD WAR I By Rev. Edward J. Dowling, S.J. late in World War I the United States Shipping Board placed orders for 165 seagoing | steel and wooden tugs. Sixty-eight of these were actually built before the cessa- tion of hostilities brought about the cancellation of the remaining 97. Forty- eight of those built were steel hulled, of dimensions 150' overall x 27! x 13'. They were powered by triple expansion engines with cylinders of 17", 25" and 43" diameter and 30" stroke. The wooden tugs were slightly smaller, with a length of about 145', but in other respects almost exactly similar to the steel tugs. Of the 20 wooden hulls completed, only 13 were finished in time to be accepted by the Shipping Board. The other seven hulls were completed on private account after the war. In appearance these tugs were very handsome, with a single high stack nearly amid- ships and two tall masts. The height and weight of the latter had been carefully calculated to give the tugs stability and a steady, easy rolling motion in heavy weather. The pilot house was large and stood atop the main tier of cabins. In the opinion of many experts these tugs represented the esthetic peak of tugboat design. The prototype of the Shipping Board' seagoing tugs was a very successful unit built back in 1913 at Port Richmond, N.Y. for coastwise service. This was the W. B. KEENE (US. 211696) of the Savannah-New York Transportation Go. In 1928 this tug was acquired by the New York station of the Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company and renamed JOHN R. WILLIAMS. Taken over by the Navy in 1941, JOHN R. WILLIAMS was lost when she struck a mine off Cape May, New Jersey in June, 1942. The list which follows includes the names of 64 tugs of this group which were either, built on the Great Lakes or came to the Great Lakes, or were at least ordered from “ Great Lakes Yards and not completed in time. Included also are the proposed names of the cancelled orders. Steel tugs are marked (S) and wooden tugs (W). All were built in 1918 and 1919 and were of the sizes shown above. The design model for the Ocean Tugs of the U.S. Shipping Board was the W. B. KEENE of 1913, shown here under her later name, JOHN R. WILLIAMS. (Collection of the late William A. McDonald) a2