A few years ago I contributed a section to the Towline Newletter describing briefly inportant steps in the development of the offshore support vessel, starting with the Ebb Tide in 1956, and ending in 2011. That isn’t to say that there haven’t been other historic ships since then, but that was when I stopped the process.  

I was on holiday in New Orleans back in 1986 and decided to visit Tidewater’s headquarters in Canal Street, saying that although it was still to happen I intended to write a book about the offshore industry.  They were very nice to me, giving me copies of all sorts of documents and inviting me to visit their base at Morgan City. Eventually I used the info in my book The History of the Supply Ship. So the process starts with the Ebb Tide.  

Anyway, I am often looking for what I hope will be interesting stuff to add to the website, and feel that this sequence of images and words might be of interest to my readers so here they are. I’ll trickle them in to keep the interest up.