enlarge John Ewing/Staff Photographer

Arthur Fournier, a longtime tugboat captain and docking pilot in Portland Harbor, has started a new company with his two sons, Doug, left, and Pat to compete with the fleet of tugs he sold about eight years ago. His son Brian is president of the competition.

enlarge John Ewing/Staff Photographer

Arthur Fournier’s two tugs pull into the Fore River en route to guiding a cargo ship out of Portland Harbor. Age isn’t a concern for Fournier, 78, who brushes off talk of retiring.

enlarge John Ewing/Staff Photographer

A Fournier tug moves down the Fore River to escort the cargo ship Bright Express, background, out of the harbor.

PORTLAND HARBOR PAYS OFF FOR PILOTS, TUG COMPANIES

ABOUT 30 SHIPS a month hire a tug crew and docking pilot to dock in Portland Harbor.

A LARGE OIL TANKER can pay $3,000 or more for piloting fees during its visit.

TUG FEES can range from $5,000 to $10,000 or more.

Arthur Fournier has had a long and colorful career moving ships in and out of harbors from New York to Belfast.

He built much of that success by moving in on someone else's territory, then taking their business.

Now Fournier is at it again, this time with an unusual twist. He's taking on a company led by his own son.

Fournier, who is 78, has started a new tugboat and ship docking company in Portland Harbor. His partners are his two youngest sons, Doug and Patrick, each of whom also runs a branch of the family business in other ports.

Fournier's competition is Portland Tugboat LLC, the company he sold to a New York-based tug operator in 2001 for $9 million. The business has guided the vast majority of ship traffic in and out of the harbor since the late 1980s, when Fournier essentially drove out the previous tugboat fleet.

Until this summer, Fournier had a good relationship with his former company. The new owners kept his son Brian as president and continued to use both Arthur and Brian Fournier as docking pilots, the licensed captains who ride aboard all tankers and freighters as tugs guide them to and from the docks.

That relationship ended abruptly in July, when Fournier and his other sons arrived with tugboats from Massachusetts and started offering lower rates for moving and docking ships.

Fournier stopped working as a state-licensed docking pilot with his former company, and became the sole pilot attached to his newest venture, Fournier's Portland Towing and Ship Service Inc.

The new rivalry has not escalated into the kinds of threats or violence that spice some of Fournier's stories of past exploits. But there is clearly tension around the harbor, and – so far – two lawsuits with dueling accusations of foul play.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in July, Portland Tugboat complained that Fournier used a virtually identical business name to confuse customers and take business.

In the other, filed in Cumberland County Superior Court last month, Fournier accused his son Brian of defaming his reputation by telling customers that he is incompetent as a pilot.

"We have had great relations with Arthur until the day he announced he was going to go into competition with us," said Brian McAllister, president of McAllister Towing, the owner of Portland Tugboat.

"It's a little difficult to understand why he would do it without any notice or anything. ... It's not like boom times right here."

A QUESTION OF TIMING

The slowdown in the shipping business – it's down as much as 20 to 30 percent in various ports, sources say – may have something to do with Fournier's timing.

A sharp decline in traffic through the Cape Cod Canal has allowed the tugboats, and Patrick Fournier, to spend more time in Portland.

And, Fournier said, some shipping companies were unhappy with a rate hike this summer by McAllister.

"We're here by popular demand," Fournier said.

But Fournier and his sons say the primary motivation was to make sure that Doug and Patrick can be trained as pilots in Portland Harbor. It takes years of on-board apprenticeship to get the state license and, they say, they weren't going to if McAllister controlled all of the tugs.

"I want to continue the family legacy," said Doug Fournier, who is 28 and his father's next apprentice pilot.

Brian Fournier declined to talk about the business rivalry because of the legal issues, although he acknowledged that it has gone beyond business as usual.

"It's my father. He served me papers with a defamation suit," he said. "I wish my father luck, that's all I can say."

Brian Fournier may have been as surprised as anyone by his father's decision to compete with him, but he never expected his father to simply retire.

"He's never going to rest," he said.

The clash is being watched all around...