By H. Nelson Spencer

Turn Services Inc., a fleeting and harbor company based in New Orleans, La., recently bolstered its fleet of harbor boats with the purchase of three vessels from Deep South Towing Inc. and its affiliated firms. The acquisition was completed at the end of November.

All three are triple-screw, 1,400 hp. boats that were built by St. Charles Steel Works in Thibodeaux, La. between the 1960s and 1980s. The boats are the mvs. Black Beard, Jean Lafitte and Jolly Roger.

The sale marks the retirement of Deep South Towing’s owner, Marvin Dorr, and brings to an end a 58-year career in the towing business.

For Turn Services, it adds to the fleet of six boats the company operates between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The company hired virtually all of Deep South’s employees, including Dorr’s son, David, who will continue to maintain the vessels.

“We’ve worked with Marvin Dorr for many years and the boats were a great fit for us,” said Frank Morton, president of Turn Services. “Because of their design, the boats have very little down time. He kept them in top condition.”

Turn Services has repainted the Jolly Roger with its company colors and the blue-tern-on-an-orange-disk stack insignia, and will paint the others in due course. But there’s no rush to change the names, according to Morton, whose other boats are all named after horses who have won the Triple Crown.

“Everybody on the river knows the Deep South boats by their current names. They are recognizable. Out of respect for Marvin and the crews, we’re not in any hurry to change that. He is a great guy,” he said.

More On Dorr

Dorr came by his river leanings naturally; his father started working on boats when he was 14. He started when he was 15, and his three brothers worked on the river, too.

By the time Dorr was 19, he had made pilot and was taking gasoline tows to St. Louis for Butcher-Arthur Inc.

When he was 25, he started his own company, named Delta Towing Company, with a single-screw, wooden-hull tug that had a 300 hp. Cooper Bessemer engine. He towed sand and gravel barges out of the East Pearl River on a towline. The river had so many bends, he said, it was “like a bunch of horseshoes.”

After his experience with the single-engine boat, he drew the plans and oversaw construction of seven triple-screw vessels during his career, all built at St. Charles Steel Works. He operated some and sold some over the years, investing his profits in real estate.

He liked boats with an extra engine because if one engine went out, he’d still have a twin-screw vessel, he said.

For the last 25 years or so, Dorr kept the Black Beard, Jean Lafitte and Jolly Roger busy moving barges for Cargo Carriers.

Reached at home on the day after cleaning out his office, the 74-year-old Dorr said he was ready to go back to work. He has several industrial properties that needed looking after, he said, plus “I don’t much like sitting around the house.”

As for the towing business, “Now I’ll let the younger generation enjoy themselves,” he said.

- Article courtesy of the Waterways Journal