Towboat in Heavy Ice Mississippi River Alton Ill. M/V CAPT. BILL STEWART 

Wow thanks!

Thanks so much, I am trying to add real audio when I can.

your efforts are much appreciated.

Yep, inland crews the boat. ACBL bought most of AEPs assets several years ago. When Inland crews a boat, It will never be the same.

I did not even notice that thanks! And Freds response explains that. Thanks so much!

Thanks so much Dusty!

Thanks so much Big Ron! The ice is melting pretty fast now lol.

You would remember the old Lock and Dam 26 and the narrow 2 lane highway bridge along with the old railroad bridge. I got off an acbl boat at that old lock and dam back in the mid-'70s after I was injured and I never went back. I have heard stories of people making it across the frozen Mississippi but I never saw it. Thanks for stopping by!

@@BowzerTowboatsI do indeed remember the old 2-lane highway bridge over the Mississippi at Alton. The locks of the old Lock and Dam 26 were right under the bridge. Before it was replaced, that bridge had a safety rating of 0.8 on a scale of 0 to 100. It was a nerve-wracking drive over the bridge during snow and ice. One time my Dad and I were driving back into Alton from St Louis and were heard this music while crossing the bridge. It turned out that the 'Delta Queen' was going through the locks and they had their calliope playing. The railroad bridge that was not replaced was owned by the Missouri Illinois Bridge and Belt Railway, a subsidiary of the Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad.

i walked across in savanna, il in 1982, but nowhere near this wide

@@davidwpinkston4226 hello David

Thanks he was sure pushing a bunch of ice lol.

Thanks so very for watching and commenting! When pushed by a boat, the barges are referred to collectively as 'the tow,' hence the term 'towboat.' ... Tows can also be pushed by a {tugboat;} the difference between the two is that a tugboat has a pointed bow, while a towboat has a square bow which can face up flush against the tow.

@@BowzerTowboats Thanks for that info. Yes, all our 'tugs' have pointed bows, even the ones designed to assist large ships/liners in and out of ports, mind you I don't think any of ours are much over 7,000 hp so it is not uncommon to see 3 or 4 helping a large ship. Some pull, whilst others just 'nudge' the ship from the side - even those have 'pointed' bows.

Christopher Lovelock This is a small tow in summer they get about three times as big. The traffic on the Mississippi amazing.

Thanks! We can get ice pretty quick here when it gets so cold and the lock and dam helps hold it back. They have a lift type gate on the north side so the ice doesn't mess with that and they can flush out ice on the south side of the lock chamber. I don't know what they would do if this tow pushed so much ice ahead and into the lock.

26 is a 1200 foot chamber and he only has 12, so he should be alright.

This video was taped just above Lock and Dam 26 which tends to make more ice in the river above the dam

That’s nothing, not a lot for Alton. Barge traffic on the Upper Mississippi and the Illinois River breaks the ice up into pieces small enough to flow downstream. Then it all gets jammed up above Mel-Price, often many, many miles. Sometimes the ice is from surface to bottom. I remember one very cold winter coming down off the Illinois River. Spent the next 5 days trying to get into the lock with 12 loads, a distance of 10 miles or so. Very little sleep and we ran out of fresh water because it was too cold to get water in Hennepin. I was also dangerously low on fuel at only 12,000 gallons onboard.

Thanks! So far I do not like the pocket osmo. It does make pretty good audio though.

I was toying with buying one to replace my Feiyu Tech G5 + GoPro set-up, but I think I'll wait and see how the Mk ll performs when they get round to releasing it.

No But they can send the deckhands out there to report via radio if they need.

GPS and big rudders

Looks like he had trouble steering from the ice which resulted in backing up and taking another run at it.

looks like 4 to 6 inches here, at a foot thickness i would say they would be going nowhere

The propellers on that boat are 108” in diameter, 5 blades, made of stainless steel and are about 1” thick a the tips(the thinnest part). Ice has no effect. Pushing straight through a foot of ice is no problem, it’s turning that’s difficult

According to my husband, you let the river push the front of the tow around, along with help from the rudders and backing up if you're going around a curve. The rest of the time you use the rudders.

Its kinda like drifting (the automotive type) a 1200’ long racecar

All those barges tied together is called a tow. From what I understand that's where it came from but it could go back further when some barges were pulled along or towed by horses onshore. When I worked out there in the 70's that's what they were called and most if not all people employed in this business use that terminology. Thanks for watching!

It is a term held over from way back in steam boat time when they would pull barges. Back when the barges were made of wood and the men were made of steel😁

Back in the day of steamships, these boats used to tow engineless wooden boats that were often used for entertainment purposes, called showboats. Hence the name.