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The Tug Invader

The tug Invader (Photo from the John Arnold collection.)

In 1975 this vessel was involved in a dramatic tow into the North Slope oilfields in Alaska in support of the on–time completion of the Alaska Pipeline. The Seattle Times edition of Saturday October 4th, 1975 reported that Crowley Maritime had successfully delivered 25 barges at Prudhoe Bay. Conditions were poor with ice conditions the worst since the annual Sealift began in 1968. The tug Invader was still at sea battling 8 inch ice to deliver the remaining barges.

The Invader was again involved in the 1976 Arctic Marine Freighters Sealift. The tugs did not wait for the ice break up but pushed through to deliver cargoes travelling 175 miles from Pt. Barrow AK. The Invader was one of the tugs leading the convoy. The company used an ice-breaking barge, the Arctic Challenger in an interesting technique which saw the Invader and the Sentinel combining horsepower to push the barge. This was a role the Invader (referred to as a super tug) carried out throughout the summer.

The Invader riding light at her berth on the Fraser River near 266th Street in 2017 (Photo from the John Buchanan collection.)

Invader (on the left) (Photo from the Andrew Dondo collection.)

Invader (Photo from the Andrew Dondo collection.)

Andrew Dondo caught the Invader from atop the conveyor at Jacksonville on the Fraser (North end of 264th in Langley): (upper l-r the Sea Warrior, Skeena Coast, lower l-r Invader and Sea Commander.) (Photo from the Andrew Dondo collection.)

To quote from this article please cite:

Anon. (2017) The Tug Invader. Nauticapedia.ca 2017. http://nauticapedia.ca/Gallery/Invader.php

Site News: April 19, 2024

The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 92,229 vessel histories (with 15,629 images and 13,195 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters). The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,616 entries (with 4,013 images).

In 2023 the Nauticapedia celebrated the 50th Anniversary of it’s original inception in 1973 (initially it was on 3" x 5" file cards). It has developed, expanded, digitized and enlarged in those ensuing years to what it is now online. If it was printed out it would fill more than 300,000 pages!

My special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into a semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.

Also my special thanks to my volunteer content accuracy checker, John Spivey of Irvine CA USA, who has proofread thousands of Nauticapedia vessel histories and provided input to improve more than 11,000 entries. His attention to detail has been a huge unexpected bonus in improving and updating the vessel detail content.

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