SMS Towage starts work in Belfast

By the first of this month two modern and highly manoeuvrable tugs were in place and fully operational. The tugs are capable of handling a wide range of vessels and will be manned 24 hours a day in order to provide a ‘just in time’ service for the convenience of customers.

The independent Northern Irish company is trading under the well established brand of SMS Towage, which operates on the River Humber and South Wales ports. SMS Towage managing director Patrick Lyon explained that the company had been set up with an investment of over £5m to meet a clear demand for its services and with the cooperation of other marine services providers and share holders.

Patrick Lyon said: “We see Belfast as a strategic location. It is a vibrant port that will be home to a purpose built cruise terminal, a new offshore wind terminal and had a record year in 2012. We believe there is great potential for growth in the new business that will result in local employment.”

“SMS Towage has grown quickly over the last 10 years to become the country’s largest independent harbour towage company. This was achieved through offering a highly flexible, competitive service and continual investment in our modern fleet. Being involved in a Belfast owned company is a real milestone. We envisage that we will make a great success of it by applying our experience of this specialist area of business to offer Belfast Harbour users a superior, economical service and advanced fleet of omnidirectional tugs.”

The vessels deployed in Belfast are the highly manoeuvrable ASD tugs Irishman and Masterman. Irishman is a well established member of the SMS fleet and one of a trio of similar tugs. It is a vessel of 24.0m in length overall and 8.5m beam originally built in Japan for Hong Kong Salvage & Towage. A pair of Niigata main engines generate 3,000 bhp to drive Z-Peller fully azimuthing propulsion units giving the vessel a bollard pull of 40 tonnes and speed of 12 knots.

Masterman is an agile and powerful ASD tug built by Sanmar in Turkey to their highly successful ‘Ulupinar’ design in 2009 for the German owner H Schramm & Sohn. The tug measures 24.39m in length overal, with a beam of 9.15m, and is powered by two Caterpillar 3512 diesels coupled to Rolls-Royce propulsion units for a bollard pull of 50 tonnes and speed of 13 knots. Originally the Max (Ulupinar VII), the tug is the second of its type in the SMS fleet and was purchased for use in Belfast.

SMS Towage also operates a fleet of ten tugs in the Humber and a further fleet of three in the Bristol Channel for customers using the South Wales ports of Cardiff, Barry and Newport. First formed in 2002, the company provides harbour and offshore towage services and employs a total of 130 staff.

Prior to the arrival of SMS shiphandling services in the port of Belfast were undertaken by a two tug fleet from Svitzer, with two local operators undertaking general towage work and providing assistance to smaller ships.