tugboats

[Wendalyn Nichols]

Not at all exclusive to Easterners. In the Puget Sound area, folks call
boats that guide big tankers and push barges 'tugboats' as well. I'm not
sure about other large harbors in the US, but I'd be interested to know the
distribution of the term.

At 10:55 AM 6/17/02 -0400, James A. Landau wrote:

>A little while ago a barge hit and knocked down a highway bridge, which made
>national news for several days.  Many of the news reports referred to the
>"tugboat" which was pushing the barge.  That is a giveaway of an Easterner.
>A "tugboat" (there are many in New York Harbor) pushes an otherwise
>self-propelled ship around the harbor, or less often goes out into the ocean
>to pull a damaged ship to harbor...