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You can see that the towboat is pushing hard, but sliding a bit to port (left) so that he can overcompensate on the turn.
The science museum of Minnesota has a towboat/barge simulator that looks like a fun video game. I mean, it's just driving a slow boat down a river right? The moment a kid steps up to it they're excited, but by the first river bend they're shoving those barges up on the beach.
So I step up, never having played, and simply apply my "slow boat, takes a long time to respond, think about the *next* bend" logic and I took the barge and boat through downtown and on to the end of the simulation. I was quite proud of myself.
It would be months later that I would apply these rules in the real world with my boat on the river in some more "technical" (read: crazy wind, currents, and waves) waters and I really understood the intensity of the river.
So now when I see this picture in google maps of this tow pushing sideways up a bend, it just makes me really appreciate what's going on so much more. And makes me want to make another voyage...
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