Toiling in the weather world: a tugboat’s sense of (work)place.

Jonathan Taggart

info@jonathantaggart.com

Toiling in the

Weather World:

A tugboat’s sense of (work)place.

Marinetowingandsalvagehaslongbeenclassifiedasagruelingbusinessunder-

taken by only the hardest roughnecks, in locales where one has little choice but try to eke

a living from the sea (Mowatt, 1980). However, (and gendered as the industry remains),

increasingly the docks and foreshores of coastal cosmopolises are plied by a new genera-

tion of hired hands: young artists and scholars for whom the occupation is a welcome

break from the monotony of service-industry “survival jobs” (L. Rose, personal com-

munication, 2011). This generation brings with it opportunities for a new workforce eth-

nography, undertaken with a blended empirical approach that combines visual methods

with immersive and extended participant observation, where Agee’s “spy traveling as a

journalist” (Agee & Evans, 1939, p. XVII) has become the researcher and photographer

traveling as a deckhand.

Marine transportation isan industrydefinedby,andentangledwith,mobility.

Historically in British Columbia waterways have held the advantage of speed and route

over land-based wagon trails through rough and unyielding terrain (Harris, 2002); today

tugboats ply the coast bringing construction aggregate from distant quarries for distribu-

tion in urban and suburban centers. These materials fuel the “hard surfacing” (Ingold,

2008) of the environment through the construction of cities and roads, adding further

motivation and ease to urban mobility. In light of these historic and ongoing relation-

ships it is appropriate to approach an ethnography of towboating1 from the perspective

of mobilities.

In response to Gibson’s (1979) ecological approach to perception, Ingold has ar-

gued that “life is lived in a zone in which earthly substances and aerial media are brought

together in the constitution of beings which, in their activity, participate in weaving the

textures of the land” (2008, p. 1796). Indeed, a boat’s crew moves along the (literally)

fluidfaceofthisbringing-together,wheresurfaceandsub-surfaceforcesactandinteract

upon an interface far more responsive than soil. Just as Vannini and Taggart (in press)

havearguedthatanisland’ssenseofplaceisdefinedbythewayislandersmove,hereI

proposethatatugboat’ssenseof(work)placecantoobedefinedbythewaytowboaters

move.Here,however,thismovementislargelyatthemercyofthosefluxesofmedium

known as weather (Ingold, 2005).

Cresswell (2010) proposes the breaking-down of mobilities into six constituent

parts–motive force, velocity, route, experience, friction, and rhythm. Vannini (2011) has

added “remove”–or effective distance–to this list. While each of these parts could stand

in as categories in which to describe the ways mobility is experienced at sea, I instead

use folk categories pertaining to weather and forecasting to cluster descriptions of em-

bodied phenomena. The descriptions therein have been considered through the lenses

of Cresswell’s six constituent parts and Vannini’s addition of “remove”. Images are pre-

sented here too, not simply, as Sontag has reduced it, “to illustrate the analysis contained

in an article” (1973, p. 22), but to aid in thick description in hopes of conveying a nearer

totality of experience (Pink, 2001). In fact, the accompanying photographs function not

just as mnemonic devices for later analysis, but served in-situ as a means of understand-

1 “Tugboat” is an industry term, while “towboat”, “towboater”, and “towboating” are colloquialisms. I use local terminol-ogy wherever appropriate.

ing, as “to take a photograph is to participate in another person’s . . . mortality, vulner-

ability, mutability” (Sontag, 1973, p. 15), and, I would add, mobility.

Methods

Participantobservation(Crang&Cook,2007),informalinterviews,andreflexive

ethnography drawing on the author’s many years of experience as a deckhand (Davies,

1999; Ellis, 2004) have been combined with visual methods–particularly photography–

to construct a thick description of the lived experiences (Pink, 2001) of a tugboat’s crew.

This approach was particularly appropriate given the researcher’s various identities as

a deckhand and photographer, and the access and ability afforded by each. Two semi-

Plate 3. Howe Sound at15 knots.

structured and open-ended interviews were been conducted; one with a present tugboat

skipper during the course of a typical day’s (and night’s) work, and one with a former

employee, with informed consent granted by way of waivers with options for varying

levels of anonymity. A third interview was conducted by way of email questionnaire.

Interviews have been data analyzed following the procedures of post-phenomenological

research (Moustakis, 1994): horizontalizing the data, clustering units of meaning into

common themes, developing descriptions of experiences and practices based on these

clusters, and integrating descriptions into meanings, both experiential and theoretical.

Theauthor’sownrecordedreflectionshavebeensimilarlyanalyzed.Photographscol-

lected over the course of the researcher’s career as a deckhand are presented based on

theiradherencetoandarticulationofthemeaningsemergingfrominterviewsandreflec-

tions, as well as on their artistic merit as determined by the researcher, a trained profes-

sional photojournalist.

Leafs Creek Tugboats

Leafs Creek Tugboats is a small marine towing company operating from a mi-

nor inlet south of Vancouver harbour. The company employs one full-time skipper and

a handful of deckhands, with a typical working crew consisting of the skipper and one

deckhand. The majority of work involves the towing of empty gravel barges from Van-

couverforloadingatSechelt,twenty-fivenauticalmilesnorthwestalongBritishColum-

bia’sSunshineCoast,onatwelve-hourreturntrip,fourorfivedaysaweek.

In the 1980’s Leafs Creek Tugboats hired two students through a local univer-

sity’s work placement program. While naval academies and similar post-secondary ma-

rine industry training programs do exist (the company’s current skipper is a graduate of

such a program), the company president found that the university students’ erratic sched-

ules meshed well with the company’s own unpredictable and infrequent bouts of harbour

work during a particularly slow working season. “They didn’t expect full-time work like

the thick-headed guys at the union hall, and they always had something interesting to

talk about”, the president says of that time.

That “something interesting to talk about” proved important when the company

secured one of the regular Sechelt gravel runs in the early 2000’s. “This run is great for

the company, but terrible for crew”, says the current skipper, “It’s stable but boring. The

best guys to have working here are the ones that can hold a conversation”. Conversation-

al skill has almost become part of the job description, and as one deckhand puts it, “my

job is 5% untying barges/tying up barges and 95% providing the skipper with interesting

conversation during long stretches of driving in a straight line with nothing else to do but

talk”.

Theabilitytoaccommodateerraticschedulingdoesn’tjustbenefitthecompany.

Toleranceofemployee’sunpredictabilityisrareinapart-timejob,andtheflexibilityal-

lowed by Leafs Creek attracts both students and another type with irregular demands on

their time: artists, including the president’s son, a Juno-award-winning musician.

“On the boat”, he says, “I’m usually replying to band-related emails, and later in

the evening I just sit there and scheme up ideas of how to further my career as a musi-

cian. What works about this job for me is the fast money - long shifts mean I can work

twice a week and have more than enough to live off.”

In the last decade the company has settled into a routine that could easily accom-

modate the “thick-headed guys at the union hall”–those looking for full-time positions

or on-board hours to advance industry tickets–but Leafs Creek has chosen to keep em-

ploying students and artists. As a case in point, the author has been employed as a deck-

handoffandonforfiveyearsinadditiontooutsidepursuitsasastudentandphotogra-

pher. The result of this shift from a more traditional workforce may be the dilution of the

lore and mores of maritime industry (as one deckhand admits, “my overall knowledge

of traditional marine skills is fairly limited . . . I’m mostly content to know only what is

required to complete my job on the tugboat”), but the anomalous nature of Leafs Creek’s

workforce suggests that this threat is localized. Rather than attempt to assess this emer-

gent culture at sea, and given the varied motivations of campus and union hall, I aim to

move beyond the trivialities of task and technique (which are left out of this analysis in

any holistic sense for considerations of space) to examine the shared phenomenological

experiencesthatattempttodefineandidentifytowboaters.

(Winds Calm)

On July 29th, 2009, Vancouver recorded the hottest temperatures since the keep-

ing of records began. That night, perched above the wheelhouse in the outer command

post, I experienced Gibson’s idealization of sky and earth–the open environment he

acknowledged is “seldom or never realized” (1979, p.106). Ocean and sky were fused

in the ambient light, each utterly devoid of undulation and texture, humid haze blending

their edges at the great circle of the horizon and obscuring any hint of a headland. Below

me lay the decks of the boat, more a mechanical horse or an extension of my body than a

separate entity. There was no motion but forward–unlike other days at sea where a beam

swell rocks gently from side to side– and even this was nearly imperceptible.

In the wheelhouse–the 3-meter-by-3-meter dwelling space I share with the skip-

per–the windows were thrown open and four swivel-mounted ceiling fans toiled to spin

the stagnant air counter-clockwise. Boots were removed; pant-legs were rolled up. Ear-

lier the skipper and I swam off the boat as we waited for our load of gravel at the Sech-

elt loading depot. The water had been relatively cool, but now the only medium left

in which to immerse ourselves was like a drop of infant formula on the wrist, and we

moved through it without feeling it on our skin.

On nights like these Ingold’s weather world (2008) is devoid of all contour and

turbulence, and the absence of inclement weather is, colloquially, the absence of “weath-

er” itself. Tasks aboard are performed from muscle memory, without distraction: I don

my lifejacket and work gloves, check my VHF radio, pass through the wheelhouse door

andacrosstheenginetrunk,flickthewinchcontrolto“on”,engagetheclutch,release

thewinchbrakeandbegintogrindinthebargeinafluidmotionthattakesonlyafew

seconds. The attention of crew is focused within, not without, and the 12-hour shift

is passed in conversation, sharing food and books, working on laptop computers, tex-

tingfriendsandspouses,sometimesfishing.Timepassesquickly,evenwhentraveling

against tide at a mere 4 knots, and, for those for whom the job is a way to fund the next

tuition installment, project, or album, a paycheck is earned not begrudgingly. From our

seats in the wheelhouse we pull Vancouver towards us like Polynesian navigators pulling

islands from the sea (Davis, 2009).

(Winds northwest 10-15 knots)

Five nautical miles outside of Vancouver, where an imaginary line connecting

Point Atkinson to Point Grey symbolically cleaves English Bay from the Salish Sea, is

Queen Charlotte Channel, the eastern point of entrance into Howe Sound. Here daily

inflowandnightlyoutflowwindsregularlybuildtospeedsof20knots,andthealternate

heating and cooling of land along the steep shores of the sound creates a funnel that

pushes and pulls these winds perpendicular to the predominant breezes of the Salish

Sea. The waters surrounding Passage Island, where the winds of the sound and sea meet

at right angles, are often turbulent, pulsing up and down rather than rolling through the

center of the compass rose. At winds of 15 knots–where ocean swells just fail to break

into whitecaps–passing through this junction can be quite unpleasant, as the boat’s pre-

dictable rocking degrades into bottom-heavy gyroscoping. Twice as a green deckhand

this motion has sent me to the railing–once while functioning on too little sleep and too

much coffee, once on too much sleep and too little coffee. Rest and stimulants may seem

trivial, but the key to riding out such swells for the part-time seafarers is in attention split

between the goings-on within the wheelhouse and the motion of the vessel. Waves, small

as they may be, become Gibson’s “furnishings of the earth” (1979, p. 78) in an otherwise

open space, and as we plow clumsily through them we must be alert enough to stay on

our feet.

Towboatingin15knotsisliminal.AtthePassageIslandconfluxweexperience

a movement away from the “mutually exclusive domains” of sky and earth rejected by

Ingold (2008, p. 1802) and begin to see (and feel) an intermingling of the two. At 15

knotsthisadmixtureremainsinflux,withthepotentialforadowngradingofdilutionto

10 knots equally as possible as an upgrading to 20. At 15 knots the part-time deckhand

watchesthewavesaheadforsignsofflatteningorpeaking,watchesdistantheadlands

for the white water of crashing shore break, and checks their mobile for updated fore-

casts.

Gale Warning in Effect: Wind southeast 15 to 20 knots increasing to 25 to 35 after

midnight.

Winds in the Salish Sea travel predominantly along a line from northwest to

southeast and back again. In the north these winds originate in Haida Gwaii and the Ber-

ring Sea, funneling through the Johnstone Strait and bringing warm, dry weather to the

northern Gulf Islands and the Lower Mainland. In the winter the winds build in the Strait

of Juan de Fuca to the south, spinning north and west and bringing with them storms and

gales. On winter days when the wind nears 30 knots from the southeast a tugboat shift

begins anxiously at home watching the treetops for signs of abating winds. At the dock,

walkingpastlinesoffishingboatsandcreosotedpilings,eyesdarttothebannersonthe

nearbybridges:bannersflappingisagoodsign,bannerspulledtautasignofunrelenting

winds.

On deck, muscle memory is interrupted, rudely, as movements that were once

second nature are punctuated with metronomic tilts and shifts. Traversing the engine

trunk becomes snake-like, more undulation than ambulation, and maneuvers with the

pike–a twenty-foot aluminum pole used for lifting rope from the water–become increas-

ingly isometric as you push against breeze and pull against sodden line. In extreme

weather the ocean’s open face is transformed into a kind of Riemann space (in Deleuze

& Guattari, 1987), where points that once lay on the same calm vector are folded one

onto the other (although never do the points of arrival and departure feel any closure

together). In the wheelhouse it becomes easier to sleep than to speak, leaving the skipper

to contend with those elements of navigation that have not been automated. The skipper,

for his part, only misses the conversation–after all, as one deckhand put it, “the skipper

doesn’t get seasick; the sea gets skippersick”.

In considering the nature of the organism in the weather world, Ingold supposes

that “the skin, like the land, is not an impermeable boundary but a permeable zone of

intermingling and admixture” (2008, p. 1806). Illustration of this can be found in a

gale upon the Salish Sea, where even clad in a yellow slicker it remains impossible to

stay dry on deck. Rain pours down from above, ocean spray whips from perpendicular

angles, waves crash around the feet sending cold feelers rebounding upwards. In the

midst of this onslaught humidity builds from within the imperfect rubber carapace as the

body works harder against increasing forces of motion and resistance. The only way to

contend with this unbearable wetness of being is to imagine oneself as being connected

bodily to both air and water–a state of relation in stark opposition to the mutually exclu-

sive,“hardsurfacing”(Ingold,2008)ofthemooringsfromwhenceourspecificmobili-

ties originated mere hours ago.

Toilers in the Weather World

“Inhabitants”, Ingold contends, “make their way through a world-in-formation

rather than across its preformed surface. As they do so . . . they may experience wind

and rain, sunshine and mist, frost and snow, and a host of other conditions, all of which

fundamentally affect their moods and motivations, their movements, and their possibili-

ties of subsistence, even as they sculpt and erode the plethora of surfaces upon which

inhabitants tread” (2008, p. 1802).

The lamentable neglect of weather phenomena in a philosophy of the environ-

ment may have as its base the logic inversion that privileges occupation over inhabi-

tation (Ingold, 2008). However, in considering the ways in which a tugboat crew is

entangled with such phenomena I propose that the act of towboating is a performance

of both occupation and inhabitation; that is, a professional practice at the very center of

an elemental world, and therefor in a unique position from which to comment on move-

ment through space. Following Ingold’s dwelling perspective, Vannini and Taggart have

proposed that “rather than asking what islands are, we could be asking ourselves what

islandersdoandhowtheydoit”(inpress).Oftheconstitutionofashipthefictitious

Captain Jack Sparrow observes that “it’s not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails–

that’s what a ship needs–but what a ship is . . . is freedom” (Bruckheimer,Verbinksi, &

Marshall, 2003, 1:33:30)–freedom, the embodied and unbridled potential for mobility.

Here rather than asking what a tugboat is, I have set out to describe what towboaters do,

and how, and what towboaters do is move through weather in otherwise open space.

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