An article in a magazine sparked an idea. The idea grew into a reality. That was 22 years ago.

The Great North River Tugboat Race & Competition started in 1993 because of the efforts of a man named Jerry Roberts, who was then senior curator of the Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum.

"I read in a 1954 National Geographic of tug races in New York," he recalled, "and wondered why we did not still have them."

Tugboats work New York harbor 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, but the Sunday before Labor Day has become a time for some of the crews to play, showing off their boats and their skills.

In 1993, Roberts persuaded the Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum to back the race but there were significant obstacles. "I called every tug company in the harbor and most said no," he said. "Bob Moore at McAllister [Towing] said he would try and help. With that others began to join in. McAllister sent five tugs for that first race. I think we had about 12 tugs that year."

The Bronx, 25 feet long, won the "Little Toot" award.

This year, 17 tugs showed up for the race. They ranged in size from a tug called "Lt.  Michael P. Murphy," (180 HP) to a mammoth, 5,100 HP tug called the "Anthony Wayne," owned by the U. S. Army. It is usually berthed in Baltimore, Md., but was in New York for a training exercise.

Accompanied by bass whistles from the larger tugs and tweets from the smaller ones, the day's events began with a parade up the North River (the Dutch name for the Hudson) from Pier 84 at 44th Street to the 79th Street boat basin. There the tugs turned around and raced back to their starting point - a distance of one nautical mile.

Robert E. McAllister had the best overall time.

A tugboat "race" is almost an oxymoron. Tugs are built for power, not speed, but they can still look like they mean business as they churn the water with smoke spewing from their engines and flags and pennants flapping in the wind. It takes a little more than five minutes for the fastest tugs to cross the finish line.

Every year, the race is followed by a nose-to-nose competition in which tugs of approximately equal size face off against each other to see which can push the other out of the way. Then there is a display of line-tossing skills with each tug approaching the pier as quickly as it dares while a linesman tries to toss a heavy rope around a bollard.

Dockside, there is a spinach-eating contest for adults and kids and then the awards ceremony, which includes trophies for best mascot and best tattoo.

It's fun, but it's also serious. It's a chance for members of the public who watch the race from a Circle Line spectator boat to learn about the different kinds of tugs and what they do. They learn that there were once numerous railroad lines on the New Jersey side of the harbor, and that goods

John Doswell and Pamela Hepburn.

were off-loaded from the railroad cars onto barges that the tugs pushed and pulled across the Hudson River.

This year, they could actually see a boat from that era in the race - the Pegasus built in 1907 for Standard Oil of New Jersey.  Owned and operated by Pamela Hepburn, Pegasus won a trophy as the "best vintage tug." Roberts congratulated Hepburn for "doing a great job of keeping our maritime heritage alive on the river."

The tattoo competition is also serious in that it underscores the hazards of this business, which entails being outside in all kinds of weather and sea conditions. European sailors began getting tattoos around 300 years ago when Capt. James Cook and his crew encountered the tattooed Maori of the South Pacific.

Jerry Roberts (left) applauds the winning tattoo.

Since then traditions and meanings have grown up around nautical tattoos. They recall loved ones left at home, the perils of the ocean, the loyalty to shipmates, milestones such as crossing the equator, the voyages completed and the talismans against shipwreck and drowning.

Rob Canter, who serves on the Army's "Anthony Wayne," won the tattoo competition this year with a tattoo that covers his entire back and depicts a sailing ship during a lightning storm in roiling seas. A white horse with the tail of a fish is being pulled beneath the waves by a malignant-looking octopus.

As Roberts thinks back over the last 22 years, he says that he is "very proud" that something he started because he saw a photo in a magazine has become a New York City maritime institution.

"It was hard work in the beginning," he says. "It still is, but now there are a lot of hard-working folks involved. I am thrilled that the tugboat community has embraced this and now it means a lot to the crews and their families. It has become their celebration of Labor Day, it is their event now."

In 2004, Roberts left the Intrepid staff and moved to Connecticut but kept the tugboat event going with the help of John Doswell and the Working Harbor Committee, the National Lighthouse Museum and a small steering committee.

Roberts says that he is grateful to Doswell. "I am so pleased that I can remain part of this quirky and very cool New York City historic boat community," he says. "I am most pleased when crew men and captains and company owners come up and thank me each year. I see them once a year but they are very appreciative that their contributions are now celebrated.

"This is something that we have all grown together without government grants or boards of directors. I tell my young children (who came this year) that this shows that people can make things happen. I'm am very proud and very humbled by the community we are part of."