Beauty and the Beast

Tuesday, July 13

The harbor in Seward was filled beyond capacity, so our first few days were spent tied off other vessels, including Le Manguier, a retrofitted red tugboat from France. Roland described it wonderfully in an email to some of his friends and colleagues …

… “So here you have it ... beauty and the beast ... a 50+ year old French navy tug and our Engelenbak in Seward.  The French boat left Corsica in the Med last summer and took the Northeast Passage (the Russian side) across the top and spent the winter in the Aleutian Islands before sailing onto Kodiak Island and Seward Alaska.    

Total crew ... one couple, their 8-year-old daughter and a nanny!!!!!  This is a modified tug with a new "sail plan"... 2 masts made from tubular steel and pretty much free standing.  The horsepower in the engine room was reduced from 750 HP to 400 HP.... minimum speed 5 knots!!!!  It truly was fun to see this boat up close and see him depart from the dock ... it took 15 minutes to pull away and turn the boat around in the harbor before he could actually leave the harbor ... and there was room to turn 125ft sightseeing vessels around in a single turn!!!

Philippe, the owner of the "beast" came up with the "Beauty and the Beast" line as we were talking about our boats ... they are having so much fun that they are leaving to spend another winter in the Aleutians and then sail onto Russia.  When asked about his encounters ... he said that planning the trip was all based on staying away from depressions that are very frequent in the Bering Sea. Their foreword stateroom is their freezer when in the arctic!!!

We have met so many interesting people and seen such broad definition of what a boat means, that in hindsight I wished that I had logged all the vessels.”