The T24 Tug works great for mark setting and for rescue. The original concept was to have the mark deployed directly from the tug, but the anchor weight was awkward on deck since the tug deck is so high. Having the anchor on deck made the tug less stable. The Mark Setting Barge works perfectly. With its low deck, there are no stability issues with the mark barge. The barge tows very easily either loaded with the mark or empty after deploying the mark. We set a mark 3/4 of the way across the bay at Lake Samish - quite a bit farther out than we have ever set a mark for an actual course. The system worked perfectly. The spool (and the retrieval line which leads from the mark's anchor ball) stays on shore so when the racing is over it is an easy matter to pull the mark back in to shore by winding the line up on the spool. In the process of pulling the mark in, the anchor ball is lifted off the bottom so it is unlikely to snag on anything. Here are some pictures of the T24 Tug with its Mark Setting Barge. The anchor and mark are launched off the barge by giving a short tug to the retrieval line. Once deployed, the anchor ball slides down the anchor cord until it hits the lake bottom and anchors the mark. The spool can hold over 1000 feet of cord, so potentially the course can be huge. For setting a starting line in near the dock, the marks are designed to be very easily thrown and can be thrown up to 30 yards, again with the spool and the end of the retrieval line remaining on shore.
The T24 Tug's boat rescue system is two-fold. For rescues in close or pulling a boat off the shore or out of the bushes, the 30 inch long stainless steel rescue arm is ideal. The arm sticks out to the side of the tug and hooks on the forestay of the boat to be rescued. In the case of a boat in bushes, the rescue arm hooks on the backstay. Once hooked, the arm swings back and tows the rescued boat behind the Tug. For long distance rescues, where the distant perspective would make it hard to time the approach right to catch the forestay, we use a styrofoam float, towing the float on a 10 foot line and circling the boat to be rescued once or twice and then towing her in. The line catches on the keel of the sailboat, the styrofoam float tries to pull under the hull in front of the keel, but cannot pull under because of its buoyancy. After wrapping around the keel, the line is secure and the tug can pull the boat back in. The Tug's radio range is considerably more than the sailboat's since the tug's antenna is slightly higher up inside the wheelhouse. Having the antenna higher above the water extends the effective range.
Besides being effective for setting marks and rescues, running the Tug is lots of fun as well. The T24 is a powerful tugboat with lots of horsepower to run marks out quickly and with plenty of power to tow a boat in against the wind. The Tug's draft is quite shallow so the Tug can pull a sailboat off when the sailboat has run aground without the tug running out of water.
T24 Tug Kit, Mark Setting Barge Kit, Rescue Accessories Kit, and Kit for 5 Official T37 Racing Marks, all for one price of $595. (This saves over buying each of the kits separately). Get ready to Race!
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