The tugboats are only used when they are docking or in this case undocking a ship to get it out into the channel. Once there the ship is on it's own. Suggesting that tugs tow the ships in and out of the harbor would be cost prohibitive and bring harbor traffic to a crawl. And they would need a lot more tugs. Looking at aerial views yesterday outside the harbor there were at least 8 ships waiting to get into the harbor.
Years ago when I was working on Circle Line in NYC the tugboats went on strike (teamsters union) and a cruise liner decided to dock his ship in the pier next to ours without tugboat assistance. He made it in safely but couldn't stop until the bow of the ship went 10 feet into the street.
The question that needs to be asked is how this ship managed to get underway and have an engine failure almost immediately.
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