Tug of hope keeps things moving in frozen sea
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E-mail China Daily, February 14, 2012
Waves were no longer lashing the quayside. Looking out from the harbor, the Bohai Sea had turned into an ice rink as far as the eye could see.
In the middle of the glistening sheet of frozen sea, Captain Fang Yusen, 59, was at the wheel of his tugboat Jinshuiqiao 6 clearing a passage through the ice to Liutiaogou Harbor at Huludao, in Northeast China's Liaoning province.
![Two tourists watch the ice on the Bohai Sea in Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning Province, Feb. 1, 2012. The National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center issued a sea ice blue alert recently. [Xinhua]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20120214/0014222d985010a3fac107.jpg "Two tourists watch the ice on the Bohai Sea in Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning Province, Feb. 1, 2012. The National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center issued a sea ice blue alert recently. [Xinhua]") |
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Two tourists watch the ice on the Bohai Sea in Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning Province, Feb. 1, 2012. The National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center issued a sea ice blue alert recently. [Xinhua] |
"Even when there's no need to guide ships to and from port, we have to go out every day. Otherwise, vessels might become icebound at sea," Fang told me when I boarded his boat.
Now it was snaking its way through the ice field to rescue a trapped navigation buoy.
Crashing noises continuously came from the tug's hull until it hit thick ice and could not move forward. Fang reversed his boat and then accelerated full ahead. After three tries, he made it and reached the buoy.
Three crewmen got a rope around it and pulled it in.
"The sea ice is powerful. It kidnapped the buoy, which was fixed to a cement block, and took it 9.2 km away," Fang said.
The Bohai Sea freezes every year. Floating chunks of sea ice can extend up to 100 nautical miles (185 km) from the coast. The Liaodong Bay, where Huludao is situated, is one of the most affected areas.
Fang said there are three tugboats at Liutiaogou Harbor. These days, all of them are as busy as bees from morning to night, breaking ice, carrying food supplies to ships at anchorage, and performing their designated task of towing big ships in and out of the harbor.
A native of Shenyang, Liaoning's provincial capital, Fang has been working on tugboats all his life. The veteran used to be a signalman on one in Dalian, Liaoning, when he served in the army. He started working on a tugboat at Huludao after leaving the army.
"My father took me to Huludao in the late 1950s. It was the first time I saw the sea and wished I could live by the seaside. But I didn't expect that I'd be living on it for nearly 40 years," Fang recalled.
Life on the boat is not easy. The crew has no fixed timetable.
"One day in January, we worked from 6 am to 2 am the following morning," said Fang. "But that's normal. Whenever the call comes, we must move quickly."
Because of their busy schedule, none of the seven crew went home for the Spring Festival, the most important occasion in China for family reunion.
"We ate jiaozi (Chinese dumplings), lighted firecrackers and pasted on Spring Festival couplets, like all families do," said the tug's chief engineer, Sun Yisheng.
In Sun's eyes, Fang is a born captain.
"On a boat, everyone has his own job. The captain must keep the team united. Cooperation is essential for ensuring safety. Our captain does a good job of that," Sun said.
According to Fang, there are few options for entertainment on the boat - watching TV, playing cards or just chatting.
"Things are much better today," he said. "We used to have no television on the boat. All we had were a compass, a chart and a radio transceiver."
At that time, before the tugboat sailed, someone had to plot the course on the chart first, he said. If they had to change direction, they had to calculate time and distance based on the speed of the boat before they could turn.
"Now the boat is equipped with an electronic chart system providing instant navigation," he said.
But there are situations that modern technology cannot handle. Fang remembered one boat that was trapped en route to Juehua Island in 2009.
The island, about 27 km southwest from Liutiaogou Harbor, was totally cut off from the mainland by the ice, so local government officials had to send food and medicine to the island by Fang's tugboat.
They hit very thick ice at one point and could not move forward or backward.
"Some large chunks of ice stuck together and became as thick as 40 or 50 cm, wrapping itself around the boat," he recalled. "Our boat weighs more than 300 tons. But it's difficult to crush those big pieces."
They filled the boat's ballast tank with seawater to add more weight, but that did not work directly. Instead, they had to keep adding and discharging water until, an hour later, they managed to maneuver the boat free.
"Frankly, severe weather often makes me feel like quitting the job," Fang confessed. "But I don't know what else I can do as I've been doing this for so many years.
"Besides, I can earn more than 4,000 yuan ($635) per month. That's good pay. My health permitting, I will keep working on the tugboat. I think this is my job for life."
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