New Tugboat Handy-Three to be Named in Cleveland Today
Wednesday, May 2, 2012 at 07:51AM 
At 11:00am this morning at the Great Lakes Shipyard in Cleveland, OH, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) will serve as the sponsor and principle speaker at a naming ceremony for the newly-constructed Handy Size tugboat Handy-Three. Great Lakes Shipyard, the builder of the tug, is a subsidiary of the Cleveland-based Great Lakes Group. Great Lakes Group is also the parent company of the largest tugboat owner and operator on the Great Lakes, Great Lakes Towing Company.
The new tug is the third in a class of Handy Size tugboats designed by Jensen Maritime Consultants of Seattle, WA to perform harbor and coastal towing assignments. The Handy Size class of tugboats fills a market niche in the 2,000-4,000 horsepower tugboat market. Handy-Three has already been sold to Puerto Rico Towing & Barge Company of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Rep. Kaptur, who has represented a Northwest Ohio district for all of her political career, recently won a hard-fought contest over Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) for the Democratic Party’s nomination in Ohio’s new Ninth Congressional District which includes the vast majority of Ohio’s Lake Erie shore from Toledo to the Cleveland suburbs. Kaptur has been a leader in Congress on Great Lakes maritime industry issues and is the longest-serving woman in the U.S. House of Representatives. She stands to become the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee when the Congress convenes in January of 2013.