TUGS & SALVAGE

TOWLINES August 2009

17 years ago

Among the recent deliveries from Damen Shipyards was an ASD Tug 2411 for the Mauritius Port Authority named DA Patten. The highly agile 24.47m tug is powered by two Caterpillar 3516 TA HD/D main engines generating a total of 5600 bhp to drive Rolls Royce US 255 fully azimuthing propulsion units. DA Patten achieved a bollard pull of 68.6 tonnes pulling ahead and 63.7 tonnes astern and a maximum free running speed of 12.5 knots.

French operator Bourbon has announced that the anchor-handler

Bourbon Apsara

, has taken up station as Emergency Towing Vessel (ETV) at Toulon operated by it’s subsidiary Les Abeilles.

Bourbon Apsara

has replaced the previous vessel

Carangue

on charter to the French Navy to protect the Mediterranean coastline under the responsibility of the Prefecture Maritime.

The fleet operated by Les Abeilles still includes five other ocean-going salvage tugs on ETV duties the Abeille Bourbon (Brest), Abeille Liberté (Cherbourg), Abeille Languedoc (La Rochelle) and Abeille Flandre (Toulon). Three other vessels owned by Bourbon, the Argonaute and Alcyon are based in Brest and the Ailette in Toulon, also work on coastline protection.

Far Samson, heralded the most powerful offshore vessel ever built, (Maritime Journal – May 2009) has been named Skipsrevyen ‘Ship of the Year 2009’ at the Nor-Shipping industry event in Oslo, Norway. Apart from its world record-breaking bollard pull of 423 tonnes using all available power and more than 377 tonnes using its main propulsion system, Far Samson has been recognised by leading representatives of the shipping industry as an innovative state-of-the-art vessel that incorporates a wide range of new technology.

Belgian salvage and towage company Multraship has taken delivery of the new multi-purpose ASD tug Multratug 18, from the Vega Shipyard in Bandirma, Turkey. Sistership to the Multratug 17, delivered from the same yard in June 2008, the new addition is 35.7m in length and powered by two ABC diesels to give it a bollard pull of 70 tonnes and free running speed of 13.5 knots. The tug started work immediately going on charter to specialist offshore contractor Geo@Sea for employment in the Nordwind and Alpha Ventus wind-energy projects off Borkum and Eemshaven in the Netherlands.