Printer Friendly
Email a Friend
TOWLINES
01 May 2006
The new French tug company, Societe Nouvelle de Remorquage du Havre (SNRH), due to commence shiphandling operations in January, had still not started work at the beginning of May. A new tug fleet, chartered from Kotug in the Netherlands, remain idle in the face of endless legal difficulties and recently threats of industrial action by tugmen from the only rival fleet in the port, Les Abeille. The new SNRH fleet was put in place to coincide with the opening of the new Le Havre Port 2000 container complex.
Dutch shipbuilder Damen and French yard Chantiers Piriou and are to share an order for 12 shiphandling tugs from the French Bourbon group. The new tugs have been ordered for the Bourbon towage subsidiary Les Abeille. Damen will supply four vessels, built to their ASD 2810 design with a bollard pull of 58.5 tons, with delivery scheduled between November 2007 and July 2008. Piriou will construct the remainder to a 30m ASD design previously used for the Les Abeille fleet, with the bollard pull increased to 65 tons. The latter will be delivered by Piriou between October 2007 and the end of 2008.
Italian tug company Rimorchiatori Napoletani has expressed its intention to revitalise its ship towage business in the port of Naples after a lean period of some two years due to port reconstruction work. The company is to streamline its working practices and aim to introduce a new standard of tug of approximately 25m-26m long and 12m-12.5m beam, with 6,000bhp installed and a bollard pull of at least 70 tons, with fire fighting and escort capability.
An extended Seawork (June) issue of Maritime Journal will contain a report and further news from the International Tug & Salvage Convention held in Rotterdam at the end of April. To afford some light relief from concentrating on papers on technical, operational and legal matters, delegates were treated to a Tug Parade sponsored by Wartsila.
Approximately 70 tugs joined the parade, ranging in size from diminutive Dutch steam tugs to the Coastguard tug Waker. The age range was also spectacular, the oldest being a steam tug of 1876 and the most recent a Damen Shoalbuster that completed trials only the day before. Britain was ably represented, among what was a predominantly Dutch fleet, by the new Adsteam Warden and the historic and beautifully restored motor tug Kent, both from the Medway.
Images for this article - click to enlarge
Unless otherwise stated, all images copyright © Mercator Media 2008. This does not exclude the owner's assertion of copyright over the material.
