TUGS & SALVAGE

TOWLINES – October 2009

17 years ago

The Dutch Coast Guard tug Waker suffered a serious engine room fire five kilometres off Vlieland on the Dutch coast on 7 September. Several lifeboats, salvage vessels, the fire brigade and the Royal Dutch Navy attended the incident.

The twelve man crew were evacuated but the fire took some time to extinguish, before the tug could be taken in tow to its base in Den Helder.

Waker,

formerly the

Smit Houston,

is a 67.5m deepsea salvage tug with a 120 tons bollard pull, owned by Svitzer and operated on behalf of the Netherlands Coast Guard. As yet no decision on the future of the badly damaged vessel has been announced.

Portland Towage Ltd of Portland, UK has acquired the ASD tug Titan from the Svitzer fleet at Ijmuiden. Titan is a vessel of 28.9m in length built in 1993, and powered by two ABC 8DZC4 main engines producing a total of 4,320bhp, for a bollard pull of 50 tons. It is reported that the tug will be renamed Maiden Castle.

On 4 September, Damen Shipyards Cape Town successfully launched the Osayame, the largest tug ever built at the South African yard. It was necessary to transport the ASD 3211 terminal tug by road from the assembly shop, through narrow streets, to be lowered into the water by the Waterfront Synchrolift. The 65 ton bollard pull tug will be put into service in Nigeria and its owner Mr Greg Ogbeifun, CEO of the Starzs Investment Company, was on hand to observe the tricky operation.

A new Finnish tugowner, R-Towage of Kalajoki, has purchased the harbour tug Smit Denemarken from Smit Harbour Towage in Rotterdam. Built in 1979, the 28.43m twin screw tug was one of a large series of very similar vessels of 1,800kW (2,446bhp). The tug was purchased through Bratten Shipping AS of Bergen and left the Netherlands early in October bearing the new name Jakob.