Letter: Red Fish Terminal & Shipyard

You probably don’t remember, but you published an article in the September 12, 1981, issue of The Waterways Journal about the “One-Stop Shopping Center” for towboaters down in the wilds of south Texas: Red Fish Terminal & Shipyard, a haul-out, repair, boat store and tank storage farm.

You took a photo of a crewboat hauled out in the FIRST 150 ton Travelift in Texas.

We also met later in 2006 at the rechristening of the Kingfisher dredge in Port Lavaca, Texas, which had been converted to electric power for a job on the Houston Ship Channel.

 As a longtime, and still current reader of the Journal, I was disappointed not to see Red Fish Terminal & Shipyard mentioned in a September issue of “This Week.”

Yes, I sold out the week before the oil field crash of 1986—and the buyer went under two years later. But building and successfully operating that facility was a highlight of my career! 

Capt. Dick Frenzel

Dixieland Marine Inc.

LaGrange, Texas