Working up to the Wheelhouse

One of nation’s largest shipbuilders remains busy
May 28, 2013
Beneath the waves, technology edges forward
May 28, 2013
One of nation’s largest shipbuilders remains busy
May 28, 2013
Beneath the waves, technology edges forward
May 28, 2013

Pulling the world’s largest drilling rig across the Gulf of Mexico is all in a day’s work for Falgout Offshore tugboat captain Willie Preatto.


“I’ve been in the tugboat business all my life,” the Lafitte resident said. “We assisted in towing the Carnival Triumph, that cruise ship that broke down in the Gulf of Mexico last summer, and I moved the world’s largest drilling rig, BP Thunderhorse, from the Gulf of Mexico to Corpus Christi, Texas. Moving the rig took about 14 to 18 days, but I once had to move some equipment from Tacoma, Wash., to Alaska, and that took about 20 days.”


With 25 years of tugboat captaining under his belt, it’s safe to say that Preatto, 66, knows his work. His knack for handling large towing jobs may be in his blood.

“My dad was a tugboat captain, too,” he said. “My family shrimped, and we would sleep on tugboats when we weren’t out on the water on the shrimp boat.”


Preatto has been with Cut Off-based Falgout for 15 years. He’s served as senior captain of the Roland A. Falgout for nine years, having initially worked the lower deck of a Gulf Fleet Marine tugboat in the early 1970s.


“I started as an OS, an ordinary seaman or deckhand, and moved from mate, to the engine room and, finally, to captain,” Preatto said. “If you want to be a tugboat captain, don’t just stand there and watch. Get ‘hands on.’ Learn about the different kinds of tow lines and tow lights. Ask questions. Learn about the engine room. Just keep working your way up.

“Right now, the industry is slow. A lot of people want to get into it, but companies want to keep older, experienced personnel. Some of the new people come for one check and quit.”


In July, Preatto shifts to a new wheelhouse: the Finn Falgout, the towing company’s newest tug.


“I mostly run the Roland A. Falgout between Port Arthur, Texas, and Port Fourchon, hauling drilling rigs, materials needed to build rig or stuff to build living quarters on a rig,” he said. “I’m currently working a 28/14 shift, but I’ll soon be swapping to a 60/30 shift.

“Working those kinds of shifts is good and bad. My wife doesn’t really like it, but I told her we have to do what we have to do. It’s actually the grandkids who complain the most. They know they won’t get what they want while I am gone.”


Juggling family time is Preatto’s most challenging land-based task; dealing with Mother Nature on the job is another.


“Weather is the biggest thing you have to worry about out there,” he said. “We have to do things safely and communicate. Sometimes we’ll take what we call the scenic route and run about 20 miles offshore so we don’t get beat up by weather in the Intracoastal Waterway.”

At the end of the day, however, Preatto said he can’t envision a career away from the water.


“I think I’ll give it another five years, but I’ve also started shopping around for a shrimp boat,” Preatto said. “If I could do anything else in the world besides being a tugboat captain, being a shrimper is it.”


Crossing the Intracoastal Waterway, Preato has no doubt crossed paths with Capt. Rodney Callais, of Callais and Sons, as he guides the tug Johnny James from Florida to Brownsville, Texas.

“It’ll take a week to get to Brownsville, depending on the weather,” Callais said. “You cross through a lot of open water and bays when you get out that way, and it can get a little rough in the winter.”


This marks Callais’ sixth year at the helm of the Johnny James. Most of his days are spent moving two 30,000-gallon black oil barges between Houston and Mobile, Ala. He’s had longer treks – to Alaska, the Caribbean and Puerto Rico for other tugboat companies, too.

“I like the traveling aspect of the tug industry the most. Not too many other people from around here who can say that they’ve worked in those places, and I would have never been to places like that if I hadn’t been a tugboat captain,” the Larose native said.

Like Preatto, Callais is following in his father’s shoes.

“My dad was always in the tugboat and trawl boat industry, and I wanted to go work with my dad,” Callais said. “When I was in the second grade, I told my teacher I was going to go on the boat with my dad. She actually called my mom when I didn’t come to class one day.”

Callais, 47, officially joined the now-closed family tugboat business Mexicoon Inc. at the age of 14 as a deckhand. He earned his captain’s license when he was 18. “I was actually captaining at 16; back then, nobody cared it you had a license or not.”

Mexicoon shuttered its doors when the oil industry went bust in the 1980s.

Callais still remembers boat companies paying salaries owed by purchasing CDs and paying employees in installments with the compounded interest every 90 days.

“You can’t live like that, so I went to work offshore for a while,” he said.

When the industry stabilized, Callais returned to his true calling, working for several different companies before joining the Cut Off-based Callais and Sons. Twenty years later, Callais is still captaining tugs.

“My son Brody is graduating from high school this week, and he wants to come try his hand at the tug boat business,” Callais said. “I’m a little happy he wants to try, but it’s a hard life on my wife and four kids. You don’t get to see your kids grow up because you are never home, and you have to have a wife who is able to handle it. She’s got to be a strong woman.”

Still, Callais has high hopes that his son will be able to work his way up the career ladder, despite the odds.

“The number of people entering the field has slowed because there are not enough people qualified to do the job,” he said. “Many of the newcomers want to skip steps and get straight to that wheelhouse. You need to learn the basics firsts, and people are missing that important step and they need to know more about the boat.”

Added government regulations have also made the job more challenging over the years.

“The government has so many restrictions on everything, some good and some bad,” Callais said. “We are getting regulated to death, and I honestly don’t know if I want to renew my license. Business continues to be good. We didn’t even feel the recession on the boats.

“I enjoy my work, and I’ve been doing it for 30 years. The business has given me a lot, and it’s the choice I made.”

Falgout Offshore Capt. Willie Preatto, a native of Lafitte, sits in the wheelhouse of the Roland A. Falgout. Preatto has been a tugboat captain for 25 years, and he has been the senior captain of the Roland A. Falgout for nine years.

CLAUDETTE OLIVIER | TRI-PARISH TIMES