Parental harmony for Nigerian dredging pair

Sam’s actual vessel name is Pasam while Sarah the dredger sails under the name of Daserah and their duties will involve ensuring the accessibility of an inland Nigerian port, used as a fuel depot. The scope of the work involves the CSD carrying out continuous maintenance dredging on the river where sand banks restrict normal navigation. The tug (a Stan Tug 2208 model) is required to carry out a variety of duties including towing and mooring of the fuel barges. It will also assist in relocation and refuelling of the dredger and employ its deck crane in anchor handling work.

Pasam’s capabilities are further enhanced with the requirement to provide standby and firefighting duties and while the Stan Tug 2208 may be considered as one of the mid-range vessels in Damen’s tug showroom it is far from being restricted to benign waters and has unrestricted navigation class approval. Upon completion, ‘Daddy Sam’ sailed from the Netherlands to Nigeria in just three weeks.

As mentioned the Stan Tug 2208 has multi-functional capabilities and is built to Bureau Veritas class + HULL MACH Tug Unrestricted Navigation. Basic dimension are LOA 22.64m, beam OA 7.84m, draught 3.75m, depths at sides 3.74m and a displacement of 280 tons. The tug is of a conventional single chine, twin screw configuration with the engine exhausts routed through the vessel’s transom. The elimination of a funnel permits excellent visibility from the wheelhouse, the main restriction being just the pipework feed to the two wheelhouse mounted fifi monitors.

Pasam has a hydraulically driven towing winch aft rated at 10 tons pull and 100 tons brake load and towing provision is enhanced with inclusion of a 45 ton Mampaey disc type hook. Another important item of deck machinery is the aforementioned deck crane in the form of a Heila HLM 10-3S capable of lifting 0.8 ton at 10.36m. Accommodation is provided for eight persons comprising a captain’s cabin, chief engineer’s cabin, a cabin for four persons and one for two persons.

The main machinery is supplied by Caterpillar and in the form of two 3512C TA/B diesel engines developing a total of 2,028bkW (2,720bhp) at 1,600rpm. Power is transmitted to twin Kaplan II fixed-pitched propellers in 2,200mm DMC Optima nozzles with stainless steel inner rings via Reintjes WAF 665L/5.95:1 gearboxes. Auxiliary equipment includes two Caterpillar C4.4 T 230/440V, 65.4kVA, 50Hz generators, two Sterling SIHI AKHK 3101 bilge pumps (each 4.5m3/hr), a closed keel cooling system and a Caterpillar/Sterling fifi set delivering 600m3/hr (water/foam) to two wheelhouse roof mounted fire monitors.