LeBeouf Bros. Towing Christens The Capt. Mark Delesdernier Jr.
LeBeouf Bros. Towing, a Bourg, La.-based owner and operator of close to 50 towing vessels and twice that many barges, held a christening ceremony June 14 in New Orleans for its newest towboat, the mv. Capt. Mark Delesdernier Jr. The vessel, which measures 120 feet by 34 feet, with a molded depth of 11 feet and a 9-foot draft, is named for legendary Mississippi River pilot Mark Delesdernier.
Delesdernier, in many ways, represents the archetypical Lower Mississippi River pilot. He served 42 1/2 years with the Crescent River Port Pilots’ Association, logging 19 years as the association’s president. In his years as a river pilot, Delesdernier guided some 6,000 ships up and down the river between New Orleans and Pilottown, the pilot station and community near the river’s Head of Passes. For Delesdernier, Pilottown wasn’t just a work outpost. It was home.
“I was born in New Orleans and went back to Pilottown seven days later,” he said.
Delesdernier has childhood memories of World War II operations in and around Pilottown, including German U-boat attacks just offshore. After serving in the Army as a young man, Delesdernier returned to the family business on the river.
Delesdernier’s story on the river went well beyond piloting ships. He helped develop a new kind of rope ladder, the COMAR Mark I Pilot Ladder System, to help pilots safely board and disembark from ships. Delesdernier said that ladder system has been installed on 15,000 vessels worldwide. He’s an entrepreneur with multiple businesses launched over the years. He also served on and chaired the board of commissioners of the Port of New Orleans. He was involved in the Louisiana Superdome & Exposition District during the time that the New Orleans Arena (now branded as the Smoothie King Center) was built. His years of leadership earned him the New Orleans Propeller Club’s maritime person of the year award and the C. Alvin Bertel Award.
It was Delesdernier’s love of the outdoors, specifically duck hunting and fishing, that introduced him about a decade ago to Jon Gonsoulin, who owns and leads LeBeouf Bros. Towing with his father, Dickie Gonsoulin.
“We got to be good friends in the duck blind and fishing over the years, and I thought it would be a very nice thing to name a boat after him to carry his legendary name up and down the river,” Jon Gonsoulin said.
Besides its nameplate, the mv. Capt. Mark Delesdernier Jr. carries numerous other features that honor its namesake. One of Delesdernier’s innovative pilot ladders hangs on a wall in the engineroom. Throughout the boat are 15 framed photos, thank you notes and other tributes chronicling Delesdernier’s long and impactful career. The pilothouse, though, carries the feature that will distinguish the mv. Capt. Mark Delesdernier Jr. from all other boats on the Mississippi River: a whistle from the 1984 World’s Fair in New Orleans.
Delesdernier described to the crowd gathered on the riverfront in New Orleans for the christening how he was in London in 1976 when he learned of a U.S.-flagged ship that was being scrapped at a shipyard in India.
“I wound up going there looking for something and told the guy, ‘You see that whistle? I’m going to put it back on a boat. I want it sent to New Orleans,’” Delesdernier said.
Eight years later, the whistle was used in the World’s Fair, where it was blown four times a day for six months. After the fair, Delesdernier held on to the whistle, hoping to someday use it another way. When he learned that the Gonsoulins planned to name a boat after him, Delesdernier knew he’d found the whistle’s next home.
Besides the 265-pound whistle, the pilothouse aboard the Capt. Mark carries five chrome trumpets from Donovan Marine, along with a fog horn.
“We had to build the top of the pilothouse strong to hold all the horns,” said Bobby Barthel, vice president of new construction for LeBeouf.
Mark Bourgeois, executive vice president of LeBeouf Bros. Towing, said the Capt. Mark is one of the highest horsepower vessels in LeBeouf’s fleet and is the sister vessel of the Marie LeBoeuf, which the company put into service earlier this year.
“These two vessels complement our ‘northern strategy,’ which is to move beyond the Gulf Coast and broaden our operating region,” Bourgeois said. “This boat, based on its design, will operate exclusively on the Mississippi River, the Illinois and also the Ohio River, never entering the canal to transport cargo. The unique design of this boat allows us to move 24,000 tons of cargo per voyage. It’s the largest class boat that LeBeouf has in its fleet, and it has the capacity to move a tow 900 feet long and 108 feet wide.”
Knowing that the company would be expanding its fleet and broadening its reach, LeBeouf bought the Capt. Mark’s two Cummins QSK-50M main engines from Cummins Mid-South back in 2017. Bubba Steiner, owner of Steiner Construction, which built the Capt. Mark, reached out back then to ask about buying the engine package from LeBeouf.
“Bubba, you build a heck of a nice boat,” Jon Gonsoulin said. “You weren’t going to get my engines from me, but I let you build a boat around them.”
Designed by Farrell & Norton Naval Architects, the Capt. Mark Delesdernier Jr. features Cummins main engines, which produce a combined 3,600 hp. Main engines are paired to Reintjes WAF773 gears (7:1 ratio) from Karl Senner. Together, they turn Hung Shen 88-inch diameter, 91-inch pitch, four-blade propellers inside Harrington Design 89-inch kort nozzles. The steering system aboard the Capt. Mark is by Gulf Coast Air and Hydraulics. The Aventics controls were also supplied by Karl Senner. Cummins Mid-South also supplied the Capt. Mark’s two Cummins QSB7-DM generators.
The Capt. Mark features radars, AIS and depth sounders by Furuno, all supplied by Wheelhouse Electronics. Unlimited Control and Supply provided the vessel’s alarm and monitoring system.
The vessel has accommodation for a crew of eight, with capacities for 60,000 gallons of fuel, 2,600 gallons of lube oil and 27,000 gallons of fresh water.
The crew includes Jonathan Parfait, lead captain; James Babin III, relief captain; Joseph Broussard, pilot; Joshua Thibodaux, tankerman; Malachi McElhaney, tankerman; Aaron Marcel, steersman and tankerman; Isai Hernandez, deckhand; Jonah Collins, deckhand; and Jakin Parfait, deckhand.
Mark McManus, vice president of operations for LeBeouf, said the crew had been together for close to a decade and had moved over from the Laurence Gonsoulin. Broussard, McManus said, started out as a deckhand with the company, while Thibodeaux has worked 14 years as a tankerman without a spill. What’s more, Jakin Parfait, the newest member of the crew, is lead captain Jonathan Parfait’s son.
“I think that exemplifies what Mr. Dickie and Jon have always tried to accomplish here, to have a culture of family,” McManus said. “Now, we’re seeing that on this boat, and I think Jakin has a big future with LeBeouf.”
To close the ceremony, Delesdernier, surrounded by family and friends, went aboard the Capt. Mark and officially christened the vessel into the LeBeouf Bros. Towing fleet.
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Featured photo caption: LeBeouf Bros. Towing’s newest boat, the mv. Capt. Mark Delesdernier Jr., which was christened June 14 in New Orleans. (Photo courtesy of LeBeouf Bros. Towing)
