With your first steps as a cadet onto the Maritime Academy campus, your first union dues payment or first line thrown ashore from the tug, you are lectured on the importance of the “Jones Act”. A constant reminder throughout a US Seafarer’s career of commitment, loyalty and support for the legislation.
On Yonges Island, South Carolina, just up the Wadmalaw River from Charleston, the fourth-generation maritime company Stevens Towing Company continues to rewrite its own history. Long known for its towing and barge work, its ship repair business is growing at light speed, transforming what began decades ago as an internal maintenance yard into a dynamic commercial shipyard serving tugs, barges
Expansion into Harbor Tug sector helps Master Boat Builders nearly double in size, from 200 to 400 employees building eight to nine vessels per year, and the prospect of a new drydock plus additional partnerships and government construction contracts promises to power the company forward further, faster.