Fujairah’s first of three

Recent years have seen a stream of news stories relating to ports and terminals modernising their shiphandling towing services, either with their in-house owned and operated provision or towage companies licenced to operate within the port. A number of drivers are behind this trend which is providing healthy order books for all involved from builders and designers to subcontractors living off the back of the associated supply chains.

In previous generations shiphandling, or harbour tugs as they were known survived for decades with little obvious reason to replace them with expensive shiny new models.

Times have changed however; ships have become larger, particularly with liner service container ships requiring greater power from their attending tugs. Safety requirements, particularly at LNG and oil terminals now demand multi-purpose powerful tugs often with escort towing capabilities. And of course there is the demand for greater efficiencies and emission controls, an area seeing the development of various examples of ‘green’ tugs.

Another example of this trend in fleet modernisation was seen with the signing in March 2015, of a contract between Sanmar and the Port of Fujairah for three 70tbp RAmparts 2400SX tugs. The ceremony took place in Fujairah in the presence of His Highness Sheikh Saleh Bin Mohammed Al Shariq, Chairman, Department of Industry and Economy, Government of Fujairah.

Sanmar and Robert Allan Ltd now have an established association and the particular hull form and layout of this design has evolved over several years based on the experience of clients and importantly tug crews. The SX suffix associated with this first in the series, named Jabal Yabsa denotes it is an exclusive Robert Allan design for Sanmar, also known as the Boğaҫay Class. The tug has now made its way to Fujairah to commence operations and coincidentally this delivery is the 16th example of the class.

Jabal Yabsa has a length overall of 24.4m and a moulded beam of 11.25m on a draught of 5.87m. Propulsion is provided by two Caterpillar 3516C main engines, each developing 2,100kW at 1,600rpm coupled to Rolls-Royce US 255 FP type Z-drive units. The main engines also drive pumps which feed the external fire-fighting system conforming to ABS Fifi1 notation with two FFS supplied fire monitors located at the forward end of the bridge deck.

Performance figures for the tugs include a bollard pull of 70 tonnes and free-running speed of over 13 knots. As is standard with ASD tugs, towing is mainly carried out over the bow and a DMT combined towing and anchoring winch is fitted on the foredeck. The clear afterdeck is home to a knuckleboom crane.

By Peter Barker