NEAH BAY – In a dramatic finale to a busy season, the rescue tug Gladiator escorted a crude-oil-laden tanker Thursday into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
It was the tug’s last day on station in Neah Bay until next fall.
The Coast Guard dispatched the Gladiator at 5:30 a.m. Thursday to escort the 795-foot Sanko Dynasty, which lost one of its two steering systems off the Washington coast.
The ship was bound from Singapore to the Tesoro oil refinery at Anacortes.
“We were fortunate the tug was still on station,” said Jon Neel, a senior policy advisor for the oil spill prevention program of the state Department of Ecology.
It was the 34th mission for a rescue tug from Neah Bay since 1999.
Ecology asked the Washington Legislature to fund a year-round rescue tug but received money only for the 2007-08 winter storm season.
No funding is guaranteed after that, although Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Mountlake Terrace, is pushing for federal funds for a year-round tug.
In 2006, federal sources estimated such a tug would cost $2.2 million annually.
