Tug Rome Joins the Fleet: Canal Corporation Christens New Workboat in the City Where the Erie Canal Began

ROME, N.Y. — In the city where the first shovel of Erie Canal earth was turned on July 4, 1817, the waterway’s next century of upkeep got a new flagship. The New York State Canal Corporation christened the Tug Rome at a ceremony at Bellamy Harbor Park in July, formally welcoming the newest vessel in its maintenance fleet to the stretch of canal that shares its name.

Built by Blount Builders Inc. of Warren, Rhode Island, the 64.5-foot steel inland tugboat arrived in Rome last November and will be based on the Erie Canal between Utica and Rome. Staffed by Canal Corporation tugboat captains and floating plant personnel, the Tug Rome will handle the unglamorous but essential work that keeps the 524-mile canal system navigable: placing and retrieving buoys, moving spoils in hopper scows, transporting dredge pipe, and mobilizing hydraulic and mechanical dredge units. Thicker steel and tighter framing in the bow give the vessel ice-breaking capability for the shoulder seasons.

A Fleet Renewed for a Third Century

The Tug Rome is part of a four-vessel order the New York Power Authority and Canal Corporation placed with Blount Builders — the first major renewal of the canal’s heavy maintenance fleet in decades. The first two tugs were timed to the Erie Canal’s bicentennial era, with two more planned for delivery in 2027. The newcomers will work alongside a fleet that still includes the Tug Syracuse, a workhorse built by the State of New York in 1934, and the Harriet Tubman, one of ten smaller push tugs added over the past several years.

Canal Corporation Director Brian U. Stratton has called the new tugboats “a significant investment into the Canal Corporation’s maintenance fleet,” one that “ensures our workforce can efficiently maintain the canal’s navigable waters for the next generation of users.” The fleet renewal complements the $50 million allocation for the canal system in New York’s FY 2026 enacted budget — a signal that as the Erie Canal moves through its third century, the state intends to keep it a working waterway, not a museum piece.

The choice of homeport carries its own weight. Rome is the canal’s birthplace, and basing a modern, Coast Guard–certified workboat in the corridor between Rome and Utica ties the system’s future maintenance to the very ground where the “big ditch” began.

Also Along the Canal This Month

Photographers have until August 28 to enter the annual Erie Canalway Photo Contest. Amateurs and professionals may submit up to three horizontal-format images taken within the 524-mile Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, judged in four categories; winners will be featured in the 2027 Erie Canalway Calendar. Rules and entry forms are at eriecanalway.org.

And on August 1, families turned out for Erie Canalway Junior Ranger Day, with free activities at 15 canal sites and museums across the corridor — young explorers completed activity booklets to earn their Junior Ranger badges, a reminder that the canal’s constituency is being renewed just as surely as its fleet.

From a 1934 tug still on duty to a 2026 christening in the canal’s birthplace, the message from Rome is the same one the Erie Canal has carried for 200 years: this waterway works — and New York intends to keep it that way.