Help for Russia’s icy waters
A rather older but still rugged seagoing port tug is getting a new lease of life. MJ finds out that along with other upgrades, the 1974 built ‘Antey’ is getting a new, Spanish built towing winch.
Antey’s equipment calls for robust design, the tug is Russian flagged and has needed its high Ice-class (1A Super) notation to carry out multi-purpose duties, including towage and oversized and overweight freight operations. Francisco Oliver Rivera of Fluidmecanica explains that the tug now also has to be capable of navigating Russia’s inland waterways.
Russia’s cargo has to transit the icy rivers on the hinterland side of the ports in order to link into the country’s interior, and needs fine tuned escort operations. “In fact Fluidmecanica had to work closely with the Russian River Register for a couple of years to gain certification for the project,” says Mr Rivera.
The winch gives an escort pull of around 20 tonnes on each side. It has two waterfall type drums paying out 38mm rope at a maximum of 20m/min and energy comes from a 55kW hydraulic power generation pack.
The winch has an integrated Programmable Logic Control to manage its render-recover feature. “You can select a specific pull and the winch automatically works to keep the tension on the rope, says Mr Rivera. “If the pull is less than the set point, the winch automatically recovers the towing rope to avoid slack whereas if the pull is more than the set point, the winch will render the wire rope to avoid overload.
“The drums move completely independently of each other, different speeds, even different directions. This automatic tension setting and the lack of gears means the winch performance is higher than on more conventional systems.”
After success with this first project on Belfreight’s Antey, the second winch in the series, destined for another Russian river going tug, will be delivered in two or three months time.
