In the summer of 1912 harry houdini was clapped in manacles and leg-irons , stuffed into a crate that had been weighed down by lead , and dropped from a tugboat into new york 's east river .
The huge interest in phillips has come as pirates struck again yesterday , seizing a us-owned and italian-flagged tugboat with 16 crew in the latest hijacking in the gulf of aden .
As his tugboat reached a manila-registered ship a few miles out of the port 's heads , the boat 's radar screen showed a queue that stretched 40 miles down the coast two-fifths of the way to sydney .
In the middle of the night sometimes , above the skyscrapers , across hundreds of high walls , the cry of a tugboat would meet my insomnia , reminding me that this desert of iron and cement was also an island .
On june 13th one of the colonel 's sons , hannibal , who controls the state-owned general national transport maritime company ( gnmtc ) , sent a tugboat full of libyan sailors to take control of the cartagena and bring it home .