They were subsequently joined by ‘Fairmount Alpine’ and ‘Fairmount Glacier’,  from the same Niigata shipyard. The five anchor handling salvage tugs are each equipped with four engines producing 16,320 bhp and a bollard pull of 200 tons. The tugs are designed specifically for ultra-long range towage but are also fitted with anchor handling equipment to perform the offshore installation work that comes with many of Fairmount’s projects.

Fairmount Expedition’s four sister vessels already have a proven track record and excellent utilisation. Among recent major projects undertaken by the first four vessels was a tow this year by Fairmount Sherpa and Fairmount Summit. The pair towed the 50,000dwt semi-submersible barge ‘Gavea Lifter’, laden with the two jack-up drilling rigs ‘Rowan Paris’ and ‘Gilbert Rowe’, from Pascagoula in Mississippi USA to Dubai via the Cape of Good Hope, a voyage of 12,500 nm. The Fairmount Sherpa then towed the rig ‘Gilbert Rowe’ to its offshore location before sailing to Invergordon UK to pick up the semi-submersible drilling rig ‘Essar Wildcat’ for a tow to India.

Fairmount Summit delivered the drilling rig ‘C.Kirk.Rein’ from Dubai to India and returned immediately to Dubai to tow the barge ‘Gavea Lifter’, with semi-submersible drilling rig ‘Atlantic Venture’ onboard, to South Africa.

Another siste ship, Fairmount Glacier towed the 16,000 tons semi-submersible drilling rig ‘Frontier Driller’ from Invergordon to Pascagoula and went on to Mexico for the positioning and installation of the world’s largest FPSO, ‘Yùum K’aK’Náab’ for Aker Marine Contractors and was later hired in by the FPSO’s owners, BW Offshore AS.  

Fairmount Alpine was involved in the towage, positioning and installation of the 397,758 gross tons FPSO ‘Greater Plutonio’. Working with AHT ‘Salviscount’ and AHT ‘Salvanguard’ (owned by Fairmount’s OneAllianz partner Semco Salvage & Marine), the FPSO was towed from Ulsan, Korea to offshore Luanda, Angola.