TOWLINES

Antwerp Towage NV, a joint venture between Fairplay Towage of Hamburg and the company Multraship, has recently celebrated its fifth anniversary. The company serves all river terminals and locks along the River Scheide in the Port of Antwerp area, offering competitive rates to incoming and outgoing ships. The new venture commenced operation on 18 September 2008 with both partners each contributing two tugs, originally Multratug 3, Multratug 5, Fairplay III and Fairplay XIV. Prior to the arrival of Antwerp Towage NV, the Port of Antwerp traditionally had only one towage provider. Inside the enclosed dock system towage services are provided entirely by the Port Authority.

The tug/workboat Gary James, formerly a member of the J Butcher & Sons Ltd fleet at Portsmouth, has been purchased by Thamescraft Dry Docking Services Ltd based on the Thames at Greenwich. Now renamed Devious, the 15.09m single screw vessel was built in the Netherlands in1985 by Jac den Breejen & Son at Hardinxveld as the Breevaer and sold to Butcher in 1991. The tug is powered by a 360 bhp General Motors diesel, giving it a bollard pull of 7 tonnes. Devious meets the requirements of the MCA Workboat Code Cat 3 and is now used primarily for shiphandling, barge towing and to support marine civil engineering projects. In the short time the tug has been in operation on the Thames it has already been contracted by the Royal Navy and other prestigious clients on a number of occasions.

Svitzer Trimley, a 30m ASD tug from the Svitzer UK fleet, has been refitted in the Netherlands prior to being transferred to Germany to provide towage services in Lubeck bearing the Svitzer flag. Originally built in 1991 by Richards Drydock and Engineering at Great Yarmouth as Trimley for the Alexandra Towing Company, the tug was fitted with two Ruston 6RK 270M main engine rated at 3,860 bhp (total) to achieve a bollard pull of 44 tonnes. Trimley served all of the successors of its original owners, and eventually became a member of the Svitzer fleet.