Announcing the deal, Leendert Muller, managing director of Multraship said, ‘Demand for reliable towage services in the North Sea is strong and we are pleased that we will be able to expand our fleet of modern tugs by buying these two new vessels for early delivery. We also have two Carrousel tugs building for us in Malaysia, set for 2008/9 delivery, which will together with these two new multi-purpose vessels give our River Scheldt based fleet a substantial boost in capacity. It is very important for us to be able to deploy good fire fighting, salvage and oil pollution combating capacity rapidly in the busy Scheldt area.’

Both tugs will be 35.7m in length overall, with a 12m beam and will have a multi-role capability that will include harbour, escort and sea towage, fire fighting and salvage. Their classification will include FF 1 fire fighting, Escort towage and Oil recovery notations. The first vessel will have two Caterpillar main engines while the second will have two main engines from ABC to drive azimuthing propulsion units incorporating controllable pitch propellers. A bollard pull of 70 tons is anticipated and a free running speed of around 13 knots. The vessels will have a double drum winch aft and a single drum winch forward.