TOWLINES

Wulf V. Resenhoeft (right) began his career as a trainee with German shipowners Oskar Wehr and Reederei H. Schult, spending two years in Houston while with Wehr.

His career with Fairplay started in 1996 coordinating the local tug operation in Hamburg as well as long-distance towage assignments. The company became active in the European offshore market in 2000 and Mr Resenhoeft has been, and still is involved in developing this business section of Fairplay which today is an important activity within the group.

Great Lakes Shipyard (GLS) has entered into a five-year partnership agreement authorizing it to be an official builder of Damen designs. GLS’s state-of-the-art facilities on the Old River Channel of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland include a 770t mobile Travelift and a 300t floating drydock and they are active in all types of marine construction and repair services including barge construction, maintenance and repairs.

The agreement will allow GLS to develop a wide range of Damen’s products including: harbour and terminal tugs, launches and pilot boats; offshore vessel ranging from fast crew suppliers to anchor-handling tugs; offshore wind vessels; defence and security craft; public transport; fishing vessels and pontoons and barges.

Ledcor Marine Division has started construction of two 1,324bhp, 14.6m long A.G McIlwain designed tugs for Bracewell Marine Group. The vessels are being built concurrently at Bracewell’s facility at Shelter Island Marina on the South Arm of the Fraser River in Richmond B.C. and delivery is scheduled for 2015.

The tugs will be mainly used on the Fraser River to support Ledcor’s ten-year contact with Mainland Sand & Gravel, transporting aggregates on new Ledcor barges from the Mainland facility at Cox to various depots on the Fraser River. The tugs will be powered by twin Tier II Caterpillar C18 main engines turning fixed-pitch propellers in nozzles via Twin Disc MG 5170 gearboxes. Burrard Iron Works will provide the towing winches (powered by a separate Caterpillar 3056 engine) accommodating 1500’ of ¼” wire.

German tug owner Harms Bergung have recently completed the marathon tow of a semi-submersible drilling rig from Brazil to Northern Ireland. The towage contract for the rig Borgny Dolphin, belonging to Dolphin Drilling was awarded to Harms’ 298 tonne bollard pull anchor-handling tug Orcus. After preparing for the mission in Las Palmas the tug headed for Brazil at the end of June and connected up with the 108m long and 67m wide rig offshore Macae.

Good progress was made, the convoy achieving an average speed of 5.5 knots using just two of the tug’s four main engines and without thruster support from the rig itself and both tug and tow arrived safely at Belfast early in September.

By Peter Barker