Harms Bergung’s big tugs kept busy

In May of this year the Orcus was taken on hire by drilling services provider Transocean. Having left Gibraltar earlier, the Orcus headed in the direction of the Gulf of Mexico where it connected with the sixth generation semi-submersible rig Development Driller II offshore Port Fourchon. Both tug and tow then set out on a 37 day voyage to Palermo in Italy at an average speed of seven knots. After making a brief stopover in Gibraltar to complete crew changes on both tug and rig, Development Driller II was safely delivered to Palermo and the Orcus went off-hire early in June. Following completion of this task, the Orcus headed off in the direction of Las Palmas to await its next task.

Meanwhile the Uranus had also been contracted to Transocean, delivering the semi-submersible rig Sedneth 701 to Pointe-Noire in the West African Republic of the Congo. Once this task had been safely accomplished the Uranus headed towards Cameroon where it connected up with the fifth generation semi-submersible rig Ocean Confidence, part of the 45 vessel fleet of offshore contract drilling services provider Diamond Offshore. The rig had a draft of 27.6m and this contract involved towing the rig from offshore Douala to Las Palmas. The rig was delivered safely to its destination after a passage of 42 days. After disconnecting from the Ocean Confidence, the tug remained on hire to Diamond Offshore for a further three days, carrying out personnel transfer duties. Following completion of this task, the Uranus went to standby status at Las Palmas.

Harms Bergung operate a fleet of eight modern anchor handling tugs, the Orcus and Uranus being the most powerful of the fleet at 306 tbp and 301 tbp respectively, built in 2010 and 2009 by Mützelfeldtwerft Cuxhaven. Like the rest of the company’s fleet these two DP2 tugs of 74m LOA are purposely built for long distance towage, subsea installation, anchor handling, pipelay barge support, salvage operations and accommodation vessel duties.

By Peter Barker