The fourth vessel in the series, Fairmount Glacier will be delivered this month and the fifth and final tug, the Fairmount Expedition will follow in April 2007. Two further vessels with an even higher specification are on the drawing board but not yet ordered.

Van Wijngaarden Materieel Exploitatie BV of Sliedrecht in the Netherlands has signed the contract with Damen Shipyards Hardinxveld BV for the largest and most powerful Shoalbuster yet to be ordered. Designated a Damen Shoalbuster 3009 and already allocated the name Giessestroom, the tug will be 30m in length with Caterpillar engines generating a total of 3,344bhp to achieve a bollard pull of approximately 40 tons.

The new Giessestroom will be operated by Van Wijngarten Marine Services BV and is scheduled for delivery by the end of December 2006.

Dutch salvage and towage company Multraship BV of Terneuzen has added the former Adsteam tug Hamtun to its fleet.

The Schottel tractor tug was originally built in1985 for Red Funnel Tugs by McTay Marine at Bromborough and became part of the Adsteam fleet in 2002.

Renamed Multratug 16 the tug is 27.80m in length with Stork-Werkspoor main engines producing 2,720bhp to power a pair of Schottel fully azimuthing propulsion units.

A Government announcement has confirmed that the new energy from waste facility planned for a riverside site on the Thames at Belvedere in Bexley, Kent UK is to go ahead. Cory Environmental will build the plant, designed to process up to 585,000 tons of non-recyclable waste which would otherwise have gone to landfill.

The majority of that waste will arrive at the facility, much of it passing through central London, using a fleet of tugs and barges to help reduce lorry traffic.