Ocean Tug & Barge Engineering Corp. has completed the engineering of an AT/B conversion for Reinauer Transportation of Staten Island, N.Y., the third such AT/B conversion engineered by the Milford, Mass. firm for Reinauer with a fourth currently underway.
The converted AT/B tug Craig Eric Reinauer was recently delivered by Senesco Marine of North Kingstown, R.I., to Reinauer Transportation. The 4610 BHP tug received an Intercon connection system at the Rhode Island shipyard.
In preparation for the eventual conversion to an AT/B tug, the Craig Eric had an OT&BE-designed tower pilothouse installed at Bollinger Shipyard in 2006. Senesco Marine installed the Intercon system into the tug based on a load box configuration specified by OT&BE and modified the surrounding structure to OT&BE’s design. At the same time, Senesco repowered the tug with new 12 cylinder EMD main engines to a design provided by JMS Naval Architects.
Robert P. Hill, the President of Ocean Tug & Barge Engineering Corp., says that the Craig Eric connection system design was engineered to allow interchangeability with other Intercon tugs in the Reinauer fleet that employ the Intercon “C” style coupler. The AT/B conversions of the tugs Morgan Reinauer and Austin Reinauer were previously engineered by OT&BE, and all three converted tugs fit the same notch design, allowing great flexibility in assigning tugs to various barges. The tug Timothy Reinauer, a near-sister to the Morgan is now receiving a similar conversion of the same design. The new OT&BE-designed FacetTug Ruth M. Reinauer is designed fit the same notch. When the Ruth’s sister tug currently building at Senesco is delivered this year, Reinauer will have a group of six fully interchangeable ocean AT/B tugs to work with various Senesco-built barges ranging to 100,000 BBL in size. Reinauer also operates a group of three 7,200 BHP AT/B tugs built in 1998-2001 which are OT&BE designs and are among the most successful AT/B’s built.
(www.oceantugbarge.com)