It’s been over a century since William Burke Vane and his brothers opened a ship chandlery to cater to ship operators and crews in Baltimore Harbor. Since then, Vane Brothers Co. has grown to provide a wide range of supplies and services in the Port of Baltimore.
One of the company’s biggest moves came when it entered the Baltimore ship-bunkering market in the 1980s. Then in 1990, it christened its first tug specifically for the bunkering market.
The addition of the new 800-hp tug Elizabeth Anne was a logical expansion for a company that has now assembled a fleet of tugs and barges that are fixtures not only in Baltimore, but in Philadelphia, Norfolk, Va., and at oil terminals throughout Chesapeake Bay and the Delaware River as well.
And the company refuses to stand pat. In the last 18 months, Vane has taken delivery of six new barges, three new tugs, an ATB, and has 22 more hulls under construction. This ambitious newbuild program is providing the company with an OPA ’90-compliant barge fleet and a new fleet of tugs to move them. Vane’s fleet currently includes 19 tugs (another is due for delivery in June) and 33 barges. Six new 30,000-bbl. barges will be delivered by the fall and one 50,000-bbl. barge will be delivered this summer.
Vane’s move into the Baltimore Harbor bunkering market was part of a strategy developed by Charles Hughes Jr. and his son, Charles Duff Hughes, – the second and third generation to lead the company – to consolidate the maritime services industry in the port.
Vane had been supplying marine gasoil to vessels calling Baltimore, but the company had no involvement in black oil, marine lubricants, potable water or launch services.
ACQUISITIONS AND EXPANSION
Duff Hughes began acquiring the small family businesses that provided each distinct maritime service, often keeping the personnel in place and running a Vane house flag up the halyard. With a thick Rolodex of shipping and workboat clients already committed to Vane for ship stores, marine safety equipment and chandlery items, the company’s move into bunkering and lighterage was a smooth one. From there, it was a short leap for the chandler into oil transportation.
During this period, Duff Hughes had his eye on nearby ports to the north and south.
“While our roots run deep in the Chesapeake, I saw that as a regional marketplace, the refineries on the Delaware River and the ports of Philadelphia and Norfolk should be included in our business plan,” said Hughes.
To this end, Vane purchased maritime services companies and amassed a fleet of barges while developing relationships with the oil companies in the new areas. In the 1990s, Vane’s fleet grew dramatically as the company acquired vessels from Allied Towing , Maritrans and Piney Point Transportation , among others in the Hampton Roads, Va., and Philadelphia areas.
Marine consultant Brent Dibner of Dibner Maritime Associates , Chestnut Hill, Mass., said that Vane’s increasing dominance of this regional market could be seen in the number of petroleum barge transits through the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, which connects the Delaware River with the Chesapeake Bay.
“Excluding crude oil, Vane makes up 40 percent of these [westbound] transits,” said Dibner.
“Utilization is the name of this game,” said Hughes. “With hard facilities in three ports, we can put the equipment where it is needed and we can manage it there.”
By venturing into the product transport business just as the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 was enacted, Vane needed to commit to a long-term double-hull barge construction program since many of its single-skin barges would need to be phased-out within a decade.
“We made a decision to move forward early on and raise the bar in terms of safety and environmental stewardship,” said Hughes. The company relied on its reputation as an old-line Baltimore quality service provider and found that risk managers responded to their pitch.
Vane took delivery of its first newbuilds, a pair of 30,000-bbl. double-skin barges built in 1999, without a charter. Hughes said the company “bet the farm” that rates for double-skin equipment would eventually go up after spending $3 million each on the barges at a time when shippers were only paying single-skin charter rates for the double skins.
“We operated on a very thin margin between ’99 and ’03,” he said.
The gamble paid off, and Vane ordered six 52,000-bbl. barges from JeffBoat in 2003. It soon became clear that the company needed new tugs to go along with the new barges.
A serious newbuilding program was about to be launched.
NEW TUGS
Hughes assigned the task of finding the tugs that would be matched to the new JeffBoat barges to port captain Jim Demske. So far, the company has taken delivery of six of 15 of the new Vane-class tugs. The 100′ × 34′ × 15′, 4,200-hp tugs are being built at Thoma-Sea Boatbuilders in Houma, La. Thoma-Sea has ramped up production, opening a second yard to accommodate the large order.
Demske has spent most of the last three-and-a-half years in Houma overseeing construction and outfitting the tugs as they are launched.
Meanwhile, JeffBoat has been busy building what will eventually total eight new 52,000-bbl. barges. Vane has also ordered six 30,000-bbl. bunker fuel barges and six light oil barges from Trinity Marine .
One of the goals of the tug construction program at Vane has been fleet standardization. As the fleet grows and crews are added, the company needs new standardized boats that do not require further training. The company also needs tugs that can navigate narrow, shallow rivers. With this in mind, Demske was initially asked to come up with a smaller tug design to handle the new barges from Trinity.
“We first looked into a shallower draft tug that could run the Wicomico River [a small southern tributary of the Potomac River], but with eight new 30,000-barrel barges in service and six more being delivered this fall, we needed new tugs here first,” said Demske.
Demske turned once again to architect Frank Basile at Entech & Associates Inc. in Houma to create a scaled-down version of the successful 100 footers. The new boats are 94′ × 32′ × 11’6″ and will be powered by twin Caterpillar 3512C diesels rated at 1,500 hp each. The first two of up to eight new tugs will be built at Chesapeake Shipbuilding in Salisbury, Md. Construction is slated to begin this summer.
NICHE CARRIER
“The under 50,000-barrel market is our niche,” said Hughes. “We are clearly committed to this trade, but in order to stay competitive you must look beyond that niche and develop new markets.”
And Vane has done just that. The company took delivery in January of the first of two 145,000-bbl. ATBs. The ATB’s 6,000-hp tug Brandywine (123′ × 38′ × 22′) was constructed at Marinette Marine Corp. in Marinette, Wis., and the 480′ × 78′ × 36’6″ Double Skin 141 was built at Bay Shipbuilding Co. in Sturgeon Bay, Wis. Both yards are owned by The Manitowoc Co. The ATBs feature Intercon ‘s newest pin connection system that allows the barge to be lightered underway. The new system can be adjusted vertically more easily to eliminate the barge-to-tug draft differential.
“We were invited into this market by customers with whom we have a long-term relationship. We listened to them and partnered with them,” said Hughes.
The rapid growth at Vane and the fast pace of new deliveries has seen the company grow from a staff of five, when the company first ventured into bunkering, to over 400 employees. This includes two full-time recruiters whose job is to find crews for the new vessels.
The company has built an eight-acre campus in Baltimore. On the second floor of the headquarters building, an array of cubicles overlooking the Port of Baltimore encircles a large central dispatch screen that shows a map of Vane’s operations with vessel locations displayed in real time. Dots are clustered in the Delaware River, and they show a tug and barge moving through the C&D Canal.
Glancing up at the screen, Demske recalled his first trip through the C&D for Vane when he was captain of the Elizabeth Anne , some 20 years ago.
“I called the dispatcher at Chesapeake City, gave my tug particulars and company name, and he came back and asked if we were a new company. I told him something like, ‘Well, we’ve been around for about 100 years, but this will be the start of our trips through the canal.’ I guess they’re used to seeing us come through now.”
