TOWLINES

The 65’ shallow-draught Andrew C is intended to service rigs in the delta area of the Mississippi River and with a fuel oil capacity of 10,600 gallons, a water capacity of 24,300 gallons and a 400 square foot deck space is also capable of cargo transfer duties.

Andrew C’s main machinery is supplied by Cummins in the form of two QSM11-M diesel engines each developing 355hp and delivering power to twin four-blade propellers via ZF325 gearboxes.

A spate of incidents involving three merchant ships requiring towing to safety off the northern Scottish coast has reignited the debate surrounding provision of emergency towing vessels in the area. Local politicians including from Shetland Islands have reportedly urged the UK government to reaffirm its support for emergency towage provision when the subject is reviewed in 2015.

The current government-funded arrangement utilises the ETV Herakles, a salvage tug with a long and distinguished history that has carried out the role of ETV in the region for many years under a number of different owners. The contract was originally planned to run until April 2015 but in September (2014) the contract was extended to March 2016.

New Jersey USA based JonRie Marine Winches has supplied its fifth set of towing winches to New York’s McAllister Towing for installation in the tug Tate McAllister. The 90tbp Z-drive tug was built by Washburn & Doughty of Maine.

The JonRie Series 250 escort winch is designed to handle the full bollard pull in recover mode making it particularly suited for escort duties at LNG terminals and capable of meeting the demands of handling ever larger container ships. The versatility of the winch is gained from its active heave compensation full render/recovery capability. The winch drum has a capacity for 500’ of 8” rope with a brake capacity of 600,000 pounds and a hauling speed of 100’ per minute.

Harms Bergung may well be making the news elsewhere but while their tugs’ future may be the subject of a legal wrangle they are meanwhile going about their day-to-day activities. After a lengthy period supporting Saipem’s pipe-laying campaigns in Angola and Venezuela the 291tbp tugs Janus and Ursus were released from the contract earlier in 2014. Their spell of duty with Saipem included towing the pipe-layer Castoro 7 while another tug of the Harms fleet, the 100tbp Pegasus was busy supporting another unit of the Saipem fleet, the Castoro 10.

After working in the South African spot market for a couple of months the Janus and Ursus were both were taken back on charter by Saipem to continue working with the pipelayer Castoro 7 off Venezuela.

By Peter Barker