The Rotterdam based tugboat company Kotug has recently patented its self developed towing ring, designed to replace the time honoured ‘ cow hitch’ and other methods of connecting the main towline to a pennant. In the Kotug fleet, this simple but efficient ring has proven to be the best solution to connect a polyester towline with a Dyneema pennant.
With the input from captains, superintendents and KST (Kooren Shipbuilding and Trading) the completely circular ring was specially developed by the company to meet all towage needs. The environmentally friendly ring is light, simple and re-usable. All of the edges on the ring are rounded, and the dimensions used create a very favourable bending radius that increases the life of the ropes considerably.
Use of the ring also offers the possibility of introducing a weak link in the towline configuration in the form of a simple rope ‘grommet’, something the so called ‘cow hitch’ or heavy metallic connections could never achieve. In this application the grommet is a short endlessly spliced rope and Kotug uses a 24mm Amsteel Blue HMPE grommet as a weak link with a predetermined breaking strength.
