North Star Port

DULUTHPORT.COM | 15 f you watched National Football League games on television in the 1980s, you probably can't read the word "Alcoa" without thinking "fantastic finishes." Fourth quarter, mounting tension. Time becoming a factor at Soldier Field, with 2:08 remaining and Chicago clinging to a 10-7 lead. Ball at the Minnesota 33-yard line. Tommy Kramer, under duress, scrambles right and flings a pass toward Ahmad Rashad, who catches it at midfield, breaks a tackle and scampers inside the Bears' 25. Rookie defensive back Jeff Fisher runs him down, grabs Rashad's right arm, and the ball slips free. Fellow Bears rookie Reuben Henderson scoops it up at the 10 and Vikings wide receiver Terry LeCount tackles him inside the 5. "From disaster to glory for Chicago," exclaims Dick Stockton, CBS play-by- play man, before the network cuts to commercial and the familiar trumpets that signal another installment of Alcoa Fantastic Finishes. Aired during the two-minute warning of NFL broadcasts through much of the decade, the advertisements featured 30-second vignettes of game-deciding plays followed by 30 seconds of aluminum promotion paid for by the Aluminum Company of America—Alcoa, for short. Today, more than 40 years later, a tugboat originally commissioned by Alcoa is sporting its own fantastic finish in Duluth-Superior. She arrived earlier this summer clad in the green, red and white of the Great Lakes Towing Company. From the Gulf to the Lakes Built in 1964 at Main Iron Works shipyard in Houma, Louisiana, the twin- screw harbor tug sailed first as the Point Comfort, commissioned by Alcoa to serve its aluminum plant on Texas' Lavaca Bay. For the next several decades, she carried that name through a changing cast of owners, eventually passing to Harbor Docking and Towing Company, which rechristened her Horace in 2003 and applied a tricolor white, green and black paint scheme. Mike Ojard of Heritage Marine acquired the vessel in 2014, and with Bob Hom's help, brought it north to Duluth-Superior, a voyage that included partial removal of the pilothouse and a bit of below-decks flooding to squeeze her under a railroad bridge on the Des Plaines River. Ojard eventually repainted her maroon and gold, swapped out the air conditioner for a heater and renamed the vessel Nancy J in honor of his wife. At nearly 90 feet in length and almost 30 feet across, the 3,500-horsepower tug cut a powerful swath through slips in Duluth, Superior and Two Harbors until Ojard sold the vessel to Sarter Marine of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, in 2020. That sale led to its renaming in honor of the late Donald J. Sarter, who passed away tragically while working in the Duluth- Superior Harbor one year earlier. In 2022, the Great Lakes Towing Company acquired Sarter Marine and two of its tugboats, including the Donald J. Sarter. That acquisition earned the venerable vessel yet another new paint scheme — and a return visit to Duluth-Superior in June 2026 to assist with tugboat fleet repositioning. Part of that mission included bringing the Massachusetts to Duluth. The Sarter then made her way back to Cleveland. Subsequent summer plans for the vessel included a visit to Milwaukee to tow the William C. Selvick back to Cleveland, and then a journey to Burns Harbor, Indiana, towing the tug Arizona, before returning to Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. The Donald J. Sarter tug boat, right, escorts the smaller North Carolina through the Duluth Ship Canal earlier this summer. Now part of the Great Lakes Towing Company fleet, the Sarter previously worked under the Heritage Marine banner. I PHOTO / Paul Scinocca Sarter sails new colors in return to Duluth-Superior

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