Tug delivery roundup

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With 12 new additions of note for the global tug family to report, this month’s round-up concentrates just on deliveries.

The familiar line-up of European builders including Damen, Sanmar and Med Marine feature, along with news from further afield of notable deliveries from the drawing board of Robert Allan Ltd.

Starting with Damen, six tugs have left its ways comprising two single deliveries for Ecuadorian and German principles and two pairs to separate Russian owners. Hull number 512284 was shipped to Rotterdam from Damen’s Changde facility in 2017 and has now been completed for Puerto Veracruz of Ecuador. ASD Nanda is an ASD Tug 2411 delivering 69.9tbp via Caterpillar and Rolls-Royce engine and thruster combinations. A towing winch is fitted forward and Mampaey hook aft and accommodation is provided for four persons.

HORSE AFT
Louis Meyer GmbH of Germany has also received an ASD Tug 2411 bearing the name Jan, now operating for Fairplay as Fairplay XV. Towing is over the bow with a towing horse aft and unlike ASD Nando includes fifi1 notation, both are classed by Lloyd’s Register.

Toki and Aya are consecutively built ASD Tug 3010 ICE deliveries for Vaninotranscoil Joint-Stock Company, again products of Damen’s Changde shipyard. Providing 59.5tbp they include escort notation and firefighting capabilities, towing winch forward, towing hook aft and accommodation on each vessel for eight persons.

Another Russian owner, Oteko-Terminal LLC is now operating a pair of Damen Vietnam-built ASD Tug 3212 sisters, Sochi and Tuapse. Another Caterpillar and Rolls-Royce engine and thruster arrangement delivers an impressive 85.1tbp with the now familiar towing winch forward and towing hook aft along with firefighting provision. A crew of 10 are accommodated in six cabins and all four of these Russian tugs have a Heila deck crane aft.

FRUITFUL
Turkey’s Sanmar Shipyard has enjoyed a fruitful relationship with Canadian naval architect Robert Allan Ltd (RAL) for just over 25 years now and both companies recently celebrated commissioning of the 200^th tug built by Sanmar to a RAL design.

Boğaçay XXXVIII is based on RAL’s RAmparts 2400-SX design and upon delivery joined the builder’s tug fleet in Izmit Bay, Turkey. The vessel incorporates the newly developed CAT Advanced Variable Drive hydro-mechanical propulsion system featuring a pair of dual-input, continuously variable transmissions located in the shaft lines between main engines and Z-drives. Boğaçay XXXVIII has a bright green hull and colourful flowers painted on the deckhouse inspired by artist Andy Warhol reflect the trend towards reduced environmental impacts from tugs.

Another Sanmar delivery sees SAAM Valparaiso (ex Boğaçay XXXI) joining SAAM Towage’s Panama fleet. Another RAmparts 2400-SX design the vessel is Sanmar’s first delivery for SAAM Towage, more than 40 examples of the design having been built by Sanmar in the last five years.

Staying with Turkish shipyards, Med Marine recently completed Tareef 1, for Abu Dhabi Port’s flagship Khalifa Port. The vessel is a MED-A2360 design based on RAL’s RAmparts 2300-MM and at 23m LOA the 60tbp tug is a compact design described as suited to operating within “challenging port environments”.

RAPID TURNAROUND
Another Turkish yard, TOR Group of Companies, recently delivered Ben Owusu-Mensah the third of three RAL RAstar 3300 tugs for Ghana Ports & Harbours Authority (joining Commander K.T. Ovlo and Josephine Asante). Keels for all three were laid in February 2019 reflecting the speed of construction.

These high spec multipurpose tugs are also notable for being the first featuring Cummins QSK95-M main engines in a tug, delivering 5,120kW in total to Kongsberg Z-drives and an impressive 82tbp. They also each feature two Cummins gensets, a dedicated Cummins engine providing fifi1 capability and a 225t brake load Kongsberg winch forward and Mampaey hook aft.

Finally, there are two RAL-designed tug deliveries from Chinese yards for Chinese ports of note to report. Nine RAL tugs have been delivered to Tianjin Port since 2015 with Jin Gang Lun 34 becoming the latest, a custom designed RAL ASD35/50 model built by Sanlin Shipyard of Shanghai Harbour Fuxing Shipping Service Company.

Meanwhile, Ningbo Zhoushan Port Company recently took delivery of Yong Gang Xiao Tuo 60, a dual-fuel RAstar 3800-DF tug from Jiangsu Zhenjiang Shipyard. The Niigata powered, 80.3tbp vessel is the first RAL designed dual-fuel tug to operate in China, its LNG tank provides over 700nm range in gas mode, supplemented by an additional range of 1,700NM in diesel mode.