Hamburg based Fairplay Towage has sold Fairplay IX, its last traditional deepsea tug to a Greek operator.
The tug has enjoyed a lifespan of 40 years under in Fairplay livery and has been regarded with great affection by the company and many associated with the towage industry. Fairplay IX has sailed many hundreds of thousands of sea miles for Fairplay Towage and is only the second tug to bear same name.
This attractive deepsea vessel was built in 1970 at Schichau Werft in Bremerhaven. With a bollard pull of 57 tons and two very costefficient MaK diesel engines, the tug was used predominantly for long distance towage. Its large bunker capacities enabled the Fairplay IX to tow for 90 days without bunkering. Thanks to those economic advantages, great reliability and its ‘Made in Germany’ image, the tug became a favourite with both clients and owners. The utilisation was exceptional.
During its many long voyages, Fairplay IX led an extremely adventurous life. The most remarkable incident it experienced was the hijacking of both tug and tow in 1988. The tug was taken by pirates in the port of Manila and after a veritable odyssey, via Taiwan and Japan, was finally returned to Fairplay two weeks later in Hong Kong.
In January 1990 it was involved in the salvage of the Iranian MT Kharg, working with sister vessel Fairplay XIV. The Kharg, a turbine tanker with 270.000 tons of crude oil onboard and a draught of 26m, had encountered serious problems in a typhoon just off the Moroccan coastline. In September of the same year in Guinea, West Africa, 18 African refugees stealthily stowed themselves away aboard an accommodation pontoon to be towed to Europe. The stowaways were not detected by the tug’s crew until they reached the Dutch coast.
For the last two years, Fairplay IX has been employed mainly in towing the hulls of new vessels for the offshore industry from Black Sea shipyards, where they were constructed, to Norway. On 26 January 2011, the Fairplay IX was delivered in Bremerhaven to be handed over to her new owners, the Spanopoulos Group. The tug will be renamed Christos XXIV and operate under the flag of the Marshall Islands.
Fairplay Towage also continued to operate the sister ship Fairplay XIV until November of 2007 when it was also sold to a Greek owner, Diavlos Maritime, to become the Pantadynamos under Panamanian registry.
Fairplay Towage was established in Hamburg in 1905 and is active in deepsea and coastal towage, salvage, offshore services and pontoon charter. The company’s core business is harbour towage, with their own tug stations in Hamburg, Rostock, Wismar, Stralsund, Wolgast (all in Germany), Swinoujscie and Sczcecin (Poland). In 1998 Fairplay established a harbour towage organisation in Rotterdam followed in 2008 with a joint venture with Multraship in Antwerp.
