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New Fairmount Tug Fleet Nears Completion
01 Dec 2006
Fairmount Marine BV, with its headquarters in the Netherlands, now has four of it new ocean going tugs in operation and the fifth and final vessel due for completion in May of next year. With a whole generation of four new ocean going tugs now operational, each with a bollard pull of 205 tonnes, it has been a very successful 2006 for the company. Utilisation for the whole fleet, including deep sea transportation barges, has been 100%, resulting in a significant increase in turnover.
A substantial part of this utilisation record has been due to the company’s towage activities. All four of the new 75m ocean going tugs have main engines capable of delivering over 16,000 bhp and are designed specifically for long range towage, with the additional capability to perform heavy duty offshore mooring operations. One such tow was that carried out by the Fairmount Sherpa and Fairmount Summit earlier in the year when they delivered the FPSO Dalia from Ulsan in Korea to Angola. The 330m long FPSO was towed to its offshore location where both tugs participated in the deep water mooring operation.
Fairmount Glacier, the fourth and latest vessel to join the new fleet recently carried out another significant long range tow. The tug was contracted to tow the semi-submersible rig Frontier Driller from Invergordon in Scotland to Pascagoula in the Gulf of Mexico.
Another member of the new fleet, Fairmount Alpine, towed the jack-up rig Seadrill VI to an offshore location near Sakhalin. The same tug is now involved in towing the FPSO Greater Plutonio from Korea to Angola. The towage is a OneAllianz project carried out in cooperation with partners Semco Salvage & Marine Pte. Ltd.
Several tows have also been carried out by one of the existing tugs, Hua An, including operations to tow the floating dry dock AFDM-6 from Japan to Batam and the bulk carrier Bulk Cedar from India to Singapore. The same tug delivered the hull of pipe laying vessel Sapura 3000 from China to Singapore.
Fairmount has also become more active in the salvage sector and during 2006 became a full member of the International Salvage Union (ISU). During the year, Fairmount Glacier went to the assistance of the bulk carrier Voutakos, disabled by main engine problems, and towed the 291m ship, loaded with 175,000 tonnes of coal, from a position off the French coast at Ushant to Rotterdam. In March of this year, Fairmount Marine undertook another salvage operation when the container ship ‘APL Panama’ ran aground while entering the port of Ensenada. The tug Hua An attended the vessel and eventually delivered it safely to Subic Bay.
By JACK GASTON
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