“Hercules”
Wednesday, April 1, 2009 17:54
Captain Robert Perrault has been a member of our tugfest site since March 2008. He has sent us some pictures and a brief history of his tugboat “Hercules”.
She is a “ville class” tug built by Russell Brothers in 1944 as the “Listerville” and sent to Halifax as a “boom service” tug (opening and closing anti-submarine nets to keep German submarines from entering the harbour). Later transferred to cadet training in Dartmouth for a number of years under a new name, the “Cavalier”.
She was then transferred again to Montreal for officer cadet training with H.M.C.S. Donnacona and remained in that function until sold to Mc Keil Tugs of Hamilton Ont. They repowered her with a new Cummins 6BT 5.9M engine and assigned her to Valleyfield keeping the same name and operated by RBM (Remorqueurs et Barges Montreal ). She was later sold to Hamel Construction of St Edouard Quebec in 1994, and I bought her from them in Feb 2002 and re-named her The HERCULES.
I have since then completely rebuilt her to “yacht” standards without in any way deterring her from being class-able as a commercial tug.Her new “home” is the Royal St Lawrence Yacht Club, in Dorval Quebec.
Thankyou Robert for sharing this with us. You can also go to our links and pull up (Russel Brother Tugs by Steel Craft) a site authored by Steve Briggs. Look for “Listerville”. This was her name before she became the Hercules.
