Parker Towing Christens Capt. Bill Archie, Honoring A Black Warrior River Legend
Parker Towing Company christened the mv. Capt. Bill Archie on October 27, honoring a Tuscaloosa, Ala., towboat captain whose career with the company began in 1969 and whose curiosity, patience and generosity helped shape generations of mariners on the Black Warrior River. Rose Archie, his wife, christened the vessel on a day that carried special weight for the family: it would have been Bill and Rose’s 40th wedding anniversary.
Archie family members gathered with Parker Towing employees and many of the mariners Archie trained. The 1974 towboat, renamed in his honor, is assigned to linehaul operations on the river where Archie spent most of his working life.
“This is a real special day for us honoring Capt. Bill Archie, and I would especially like to recognize Rose and the Archie family,” said Chas Haun, executive vice president of Parker Towing, who welcomed the crowd.
Haun said he first met Archie in the late 1990s in Pickensville, Ala., when the mv. Heloise brought a tow of gypsum down to the landing there. Haun had just climbed out of a barge after running a Bobcat.
“He said, in that voice that only Archie had, ‘Hey son, why don’t you come up here and see me?’” Haun said. “I sat up in the wheelhouse for a while, and he must have asked me 500 questions.”
Haun said he went home that day and told his father he had never seen so many electronics plugged up in one wheelhouse. That fascination, he said, made Archie a leader for the whole industry.
“He loved having the latest and greatest in electronics,” Haun said. “When he would get a new piece of electronics, you could be sure that everybody else would be calling and asking for it later on.”
Archie was one of the early users of Coastal Explorer and Rose Point navigation software, Haun said, and he worked with the developers for years to help shape it into the commercial application that is now standard for mariners moving up and down the rivers.
“If he was curious about something, he was going to find out,” Haun said. “He would stay on the phone until he got an answer.”
That curiosity extended to people. When a speaker at a captains’ conference discussed generations in the workforce, Haun said, Archie took more notes than anyone because he wanted to communicate with and teach his crews more effectively.
“Archie was always training people,” Haun said. “I don’t ever remember him not having a cub pilot. Some of that may have been that somebody had to be up there he could talk to for a full hitch, because Archie was going to talk. I see a lot of faces here that he’s trained over the years.”
What Haun said he remembered most, though, was Archie’s graciousness. Whenever the company issued a pay raise or a bonus, Haun said, he knew the money had reached employees’ accounts when Archie called to thank him.
“I talked to him two or three times a year just on those days,” Haun said. “He was always very proud of Tim and me for how we carried the mantle and continued to grow the business.”
When Haun first saw this vessel on drydock, he said, he knew right away it needed to be the Bill Archie. He likened the boat to a sister ship of the Heloise, which Archie piloted “for more years than most of y’all have been alive.”
According to the ceremony program, Archie was a lifelong resident of Tuscaloosa. His history with Parker Towing began in 1969, and he spent the majority of his career with the company, apart from a short stint pushing tows on the Mississippi River. He served as captain of the mv. Seldon Hurt and later spent 26 years as captain of the Heloise, becoming a fixture of the Black Warrior River and an unmistakable voice on the radio.
The program credited Archie with training countless mariners and adapting through decades of change in technology, regulations and safety practices. “Bill didn’t just run boats,” it read. “He built mariners.”
Away from the wheelhouse, Archie was devoted to his family. He met his wife, Rose, in Tuscaloosa in 1985, and the two were married there in 1986. Together they raised three children and two stepchildren, and he was a proud grandfather to several grandchildren.
He also enjoyed playing games and making the occasional trip to the casino, though those who sat across a card table from him said he was not an easy man to beat.
Haun closed his remarks by turning back to the Archie family. “Unfortunately, Bill passed, and he’s no longer with us, but his name now travels the Black Warrior River, and his legacy lives on in the mariners that he trained,” he said.
Zeb Duco-Moore, vice president of operations, gave the invocation. He gave thanks for the knowledge and friendship Archie passed on to so many and asked a blessing on everyone who works aboard.
“Watch over every captain and pilot who takes her wheel, every deckhand who walks her deck, every engineer who keeps her engines turning,” Duco-Moore prayed, asking for safe passage, good judgment and calm waters.
Noting the anniversary, Duco-Moore asked that Rose be surrounded with comfort and strength, and that Bill’s name and the life they built together be remembered each time the vessel gets underway. He closed by asking God’s blessing on the vessel, its crews, Rose and the Archie family.
Rose Archie then christened the boat, and guests gathered afterward for a reception.
As the program put it, the boat carries his name, and the mariners he taught carry his legacy. Both will keep working the Black Warrior River.
Vessel Specs
The mv. Capt. Bill Archie was built in 1974 by Fredeman Shipyard in Carlyss, La. The towboat measures 130 feet long and 34 feet wide, with a depth of 10.4 feet and an eye level of 34 feet. Power comes from two EMD 16-645-E2 main engines producing a combined 3,800 horsepower, turning 96-inch by 88-inch wheels through Western 1774-3 reduction gears at a 4:1 ratio. Two Cummins 6CTA 8.3 generators provide electrical power.
The boat carries 96,840 gallons of fuel and 23,000 gallons of potable water and has six bedrooms across two decks. The wheelhouse is equipped with Rose Point navigation, two radars, AIS, a swingmeter and an electronic compass.
Featured photo caption: Built in 1974 by Fredeman Shipyard, the mv. Capt. Bill Archie is assigned to linehaul operations on the Black Warrior River, where Archie spent most of his working life. (Photo courtesy of JR Masterscapes)
