Foss Maritime
Brynn Foss in Redondo Beach, California
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| Genre | Tug, barge, and towing |
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| Founded | 1889 |
| Founder | Thea Foss, Andrew Foss |
| Headquarters | United States |
| Owner | Saltchuk |
| Website | http://www.foss.com |
Foss Maritime (formerly Foss Launch and Tug Company) is an American shipping company. The company was founded in 1889 by Thea Foss (1857–1927) and her husband Andrew Foss. The company is now the largest tug and towing concern on the west coast of the United States.
July 2, 2013, Foss Marine Holdings announced that (effective at that date) it merges all of its operations and resources under a single name: 'Foss Maritime Company'.
Foss was founded in 1889 by Thea Foss in Tacoma, Washington, where Thea started out buying a single rowboat for five dollars and painting it white with green trim. She sold and rented out boats to appealing crowds of fishermen for 50 cents a day. Thea tripled her profit and then sold it for fifteen dollars. Her easy profit boosted her business confidence to begin a full round tugboat company. Her signature styling of a tugboat was having white coating with a green trim around the skirt. This gave the Foss family the finances they needed to propel into a functioning business. During this point of time, they used many of their rowboats for ferrying purposes. In 1904, their family owned firm was transformed into the Foss Launch and Tow Co., which would go on to become one of the top maritime companies known on the West Coast.
The Foss concern began with a single rowboat which Thea Foss rented to crews of vessels in Tacoma. Under the management of Thea Foss, and the Foss family, the company then branched out into sailboats, naptha launches, gasoline-engined vessels, and scows and barges. When Thea Foss died in 1927, the company owned 27 gasoline, diesel, and steam powered vessels, and numerous unpowered barges.
In 1916 Foss Launch and Tug Company bought Captain O.G. Olson's Tacoma towing business, including the steam tugs Echo, Elf, and Olympian.
Foss tug dieselised their fleet c.1930. In this way, they were in a better position to weather the Depression. Their small competition either went under or were bought out.
During the Second World War, Foss tugs were seconded to the US Navy to fight in the Pacific. Tugs were needed to help the Navy in the South Pacific; in the North Pacific with the Aleutian Campaign; in Alaska with the Alaska Highway. More tugs were built in the emergency program and these became available after the war.
Foss tug would buy and sell used tugboats and name them with a member of the family. Many famous tugs from the Seattle area have been renamed for a Foss. The condition of the vessel and the amount of work contracts at the time dictated ownership. Foss owned several Miki-class tugs.
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