Swire Pacific Offshore has ordered another four anchor handlers to the IMT966 design. They will follow six similar vessels already under construction at Labroy Shipyards, Singapore. The 66m vessels have a 120 ton bollard pull and are optimised for worldwide service of offshore towage, anchor handling and logistics support activities in all weather conditions. In order to allow passage into the Caspian Sea the breadth is limited to 16m and the bridge deck can be removed and temporarily stored on the main deck. Delivery of the first vessel, ‘Pacific Valhalla’, is scheduled for August 2007 and subsequent vessels at two monthly intervals. Scottish IMT Marine Consultants, partner in the Offshore Ship Designers Group, was responsible for the design of these innovative and powerful vessels.

The Government of Malta andRimorchiatori Riuniti Spa of Genoa has signed a Share Sale Agreement which effectively concludes the privatisation process of TugMaltaLtd. President of Rimorchiatori Riuniti Spa Giovanni Delle Piane said that the acquisition of Tug Malta will provide his company with an excellent opportunity to return to a market that they had abandoned several years ago. ‘Our aim is to have another success story here in Malta’, he said. Future plans include an investment of over €22m in two new tugs and the purchase of equipment to upgrade some of the existing tugs to make them more versatile.

A Parade of 68 tugs organised by the ABR Company Ltd at the International Tug & Salvage Convention (ITS 2006) in Rotterdam last year set a new Guinness World Record. That record was broken in spectacular fashion just one year later by a parade organised by the Dutch Inland Waters Shipping Group at the Dordrecht Maritime Festival in June. Enthusiastic tug owners and operators produced a total of 148 tugs. In spite of the small size and age of some of the entrants, the assembled parade represented a total engine output of 69,539 bhp, rather less than at ITS 2006, where many of the tugs were powerful modern vessels. The Dordrecht Parade was well organised and documented and will be hard to beat, unless you know otherwise.