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EFC Design 1055 (Crowninshield S.B. type): Notes & Illustrations


EFC Design 1055: 152' Wood Ocean-Going Tug, Crowninshield SB Co. Design

EFC Design 1055

Click here for larger and more complete plans from the 1920 USSB ship register: Sheet 1, Sheet 2

Click on the photographs below to prompt larger views of the same images.

Tug Mary A. Bickel (Design 1055)
Steam tug Mary A. Bickel, originally named Quero (Design 1055, EFC Hull 1234), was cancelled, delivered without machinery, and completed as designed circa 1925 by her first owner, Charles F. Bickel of New York. She is shown here operating in the Engineer Corps' Norfolk District on 18 April 1931 when owned by the Standard Dredging Co. of New Jersey. (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Digital Library, usace.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/ p15141coll5/id/8113/rec/1) (Click photo to enlarge)

Steam Tug Fame (Design 1055, EFC Hull 1229)

This was the first of only five Design 1055 tugs that were completed as intended for the Shipping Board. She appears to be at a maintenance pier with sheer legs at its end and a Scotch boiler on it behind the tug's mainmast. Fame retained her name thoughout her long career, which ended in 1948.

Photo No. None
Source: NARA RG-19-MC box 1
Tug Fame
Steam tug Perseverance (Design 1055, EFC Hull 2349)

At the company docks of the Cornell Steamboat Co. on Rondout Creek at Kingston, N.Y. with other Cornell tugs circa the 1920s. The EFC had sold the design 1055 tug Perseverance incomplete to Cornell along with a 1000-hp triple expansion engine (already installed) and two Scotch boilers, and Cornell installed the boilers in the tug, which retained its Shipping Board name, with a striking pair of tall stacks. These, along with the firm's custom trim, left Perseverance looking very little like an EFC tug. At the same time Cornell's older (1890) and smaller Geo. W. Washburn, here behind Perseverance, needed reboilering, and she was also given surplus EFC boilers with twin stacks.

Photo No. Hudson River Maritime Museum 2003.12.1230
Source: New York Heritage Digital Collections, nyheritage.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/ hrmm/id/421/. See also Stuart Murray, Thomas Cornell and the Cornell Steamboat Company, Fleischmanns, NY, 2001
Tug Perseverance
Steamer Kenosha, ex Commander (Design 1055, EFC Hull 2478)

The three Design 1055 tugs ordered from the Universal Shipbuilding Co. at Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, were cancelled in late 1919 and completed privately circa 1922 as passenger and package freight steamers. This is Kenosha, formerly the incomplete tug Commander.

Photo No. None
Source: Historical Collections of the Great Lakes, Bowling Green State University
Steamer Kenosha
Steamer Sheboygan, ex Lieutenant (Design 1055, EFC Hull 2480)

The three Design 1055 tugs ordered from the Universal Shipbuilding Co. at Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, were cancelled in late 1919 and completed privately circa 1922 as passenger and package freight steamers. This is Sheboygan, formerly the incomplete tug Lieutenant.

Photo No. None
Source: Historical Collections of the Great Lakes, Bowling Green State University
Steamer Sheboygan