Boluda fleet expansion underway

Looking first at the deliveries, VB Ouragan and VB Cyclone, were recently completed by Piriou Vietnam and are to be deployed in the French ports of St Nazaire and Dunkerque. They were delivered to Boluda France, part of Boluda Corporación Maritima with the third and fourth vessels due for delivery in early 2016.

VB Ouragan and VB Cyclone are first examples of the standard Piriou OST 30 (Omni Stern Tug) design with modifications specified by the customer. They come in at 30.3m LOA, 10.4m beam and 5.3m draught and designed for both ship-handling and sea towage duties with a towing winch aft and double-drum escort winch forward.

Two medium speed turbocharged four-stroke diesel engines developing 3,890kW in total drive aft-mounted azimuth thrusters; the main engines are fresh-water cooled with box cooler refrigerants. Other features of interest include: meeting specific requirements of the marine renewable energy sector; special antifouling and ICAF system allowing maintenance every five years; accommodation (for six crew) satisfying ILO 2006 requirements with special attention paid to noise reduction; fuel capacity 82m3 and fresh water capacity 23m3.

Heading back to the European shipbuilding scene, Spanish shipyard Astilleros Zamakona are now progressing with construction of the first two in a series of up to ten Advanced Voith Water Tractors for Boluda Towage and Salvage.

The 80tbp tugs, from a Robert Allan Ltd design will be delivered over a five year timescale, the first two in the series due in the fourth quarter of 2016. Boluda’s tug building programme is aimed at increasing their current towing capabilities in Spanish ports.

The project has been developed jointly between Robert Allan Ltd and Boluda’s technical team with the latter choosing equipment on board the vessels based on their previous experiences with the suppliers. This includes main machinery from MaK, deck machinery from Ibercisa and of course Voith Turbo Schneider Propulsion GmbH as propulsion supplier.

The tugs each have a length of 31.57m and beam of 12.8m and the machinery installation includes two 32R5/265-2 Voith Schneider propeller units, two 1330 DTL Turbo Couplings and two RENK bow-tooth couplings.

Voith have a long and respected history with their cycloidal drive systems seeing constant development and improvement over many decades. They employ more than 39,000 people across the globe in their various divisions which include rail, commercial vehicles and automotive markets and are one of the largest family-owned companies in Europe generating €5.3bn in sales from operations in over 50 countries.

By Peter Barker