Malta Tugs 1856 - 2012

Author: Michael Cassar

Self-published 2013

Extent: 360pp

 

There are, I expect, two ways how to approach the history of anything. One way is to list the bare facts. The other is to describe the context.When this book was launched, at the Maritime Museum last summer, the presentation highlighted the many episodes in the lives and times of tugs in Malta, especially the hardship involved in the occasional big storms around our island.Unfortunately, the book does not contain any of this mesmerising past history.This does not make it a boring book, or an arid list of names and other details.Despite the rather misleading title, the book takes up the story where an earlier publication, Royal Navy Tugs at the Grand Harbour Malta (2010) had left. In other words, it takes up the story with the departure of the British Navy and the beginning of commercial towage for large vessels.The author had the invaluable help of two of the foremost persons in the sector - John E. Sullivan and Major Raymond P. Miller who opened up for him the vast archive of the company.The history of tug boats in Malta accompanied the vaster history of the Malta Dockyards from the times of the British Navy through the privatisation to Bailey Malta, and back to the nationalisation as Malta Drydocks. This was also the time when the private sector tried to get involved. Despite the constantly shifting kaleidoscope of companies splitting or getting together to form new alliances, the worst threat these private tug boats had to face came with the Labour government of 1971 onwards when the government intimated that it wanted to bring under its control all port facilities.An important annex to this book is that written by John E. Sullivan which details all events in the history of commercial towage in Malta.Subsequent to the government's request in 1973, government confirmed it was prepared to accept market values for the valuation of the assets in question. The companies drew up a list of valuations with prices and valuations as given by the UK shipbrokers and nothing more was ever heard of this.The same issue again came up in 1978 and Tug Malta was set up in 1979 commencing in 1980 after agreement was reached on the use of the tugs owned by Midmed Towage and MST.There followed negotiations and disagreements and in 1981 Midmed Towage applied for separate export licences for four of its tugs. Other disagreements regarded tariff rates.The situation obviously drastically changed after the May 1987 election: people at the top were changed and an overdue collective agreement was signed.Meanwhile, with the development of the Freeport, more and more tug operations were shifted in that direction from the Grand Harbour. Tug Malta continued to run towage at the Dockyard at a substantial loss.In 2006 Tug Malta entered into an agreement with the Malta Maritime Authority to be the sole provider of towage services in the harbours and territorial waters of Malta. By the end of that year, government sold the shares of Malta Government Investments Ltd in Tug Malta and by the next year Rimorchiatori Malta Ltd was set up now owning all shares in Tug Malta.The book itself is at times rather sketchy on the history and it is only by reference to John E. Sullivan's Annex that some things become clearer.The book then more than amply makes up for this by the meticulous description of each and every tug boat that there has ever been in Malta. We may think there are very few of them and many of them have been around for years but that is not the reality at all. The book contains descriptions, history and photos of no less than 103 tug boats. Some have a riveting history: we had tugs that formed part of the German navy in World War II (Bremen Terrier) while others formed part of the Royal Navy in the same war (British Terrier). Others came as a gift from the people of China or the US.Bremen Terrier and Maltese Terrier were of German origin dating from World War II. The engine on the former was originally meant to be mounted on a U-Boat while Maltese Terrier was built in Norway during the war and seized by the German Navy. For several years Maltese Terrier was anchored in Sliema Creek displaying advertising but now, the book tells us, is laid up in a very poor condition at Cassar Shipyard at Marsa presumably awaiting demolition. Indeed, there is life after death for old tug boats - they end up scuttled in the sea around Malta to provide an attraction for divers and fish.The book tells us that tug boats were dressed up on national occasions such as when they saluted the Bulwark when the British Forces were thought to be on their way out of Malta but it does not mention the use and abuse of tug boats to aid Copper Mountain block the Grand Harbour in June 1988 or the Marsaxlokk one.Like the Dockyard, the tugs found themselves mixed up in Malta's turbulent political history. All that is gone now and tugs ply their trade in and out of the Maltese harbours as they do elsewhere in the world.As I said at the beginning, one waits for a companion volume which tells the story or stories of the people on the tug boats.