A&P Tees Goes from Strength to Strength
A&P Group’s Teesside facility, located near Middlesborough, has made a successful start since re-opening for business earlier this year, success in both use of the shipyard and offering users of the River Tees, and surrounding areas, an effective and efficient ‘Shipcare’ service. The first vessel drydocked at the shipyard was the 3,086 dwt dredger Heortnesse, which is owned by Tees & Hartlepool Port Authority. This vessel underwent thruster repairs. The largest contract since then has been a two week drydocking of Farstad Shipping’s 4,680 dwt offshore supply vessel Far Service, which was in for a two week drydocking operation during late July/early August. Other drydocking contracts have included dredgers and tugs operating in the Tees region.
Ayton Cross Arrival Boosts Wijsmuller Fleet
Wijsmuller Marine has accepted the first of two azimuthing stern drive (ASD) tractor tugs from the Spanish shipbuilder Astilleros Zamacona. Following a crew familiarization period, the Ayton Cross is expected to be in full service by the middle of the month. The second tug, Ormesby Cross, is to be delivered by Zamacona before the end of the year. Both tugs will be based on the River Tees from where the Wijsmuller tug fleet covers both the Tees and the port of Hartlepool. With a bollard pull of 60 tons each, the two new tugs will be the most powerful units in the fleet and will allow Wijsmuller to transfer one of its existing Tees tractor tugs, Yarm Cross, to its Tyne operation.
Norcontrol IT Completes Installation
Norcontrol IT has recently concluded the installation of a complete Port Operations System for the Tees & Hartlepool Port Authority. The system has been designed to be one the world’s most robust vessel traffic management applications, and is capable of handling high volumes of traffic. Unlike most vessel traffic database applications, which merely record visits, vessel data, and related events and details, this next generation VTS Database (VDB) functions as the cornerstone of the ports' operational business systems. The application takes the first booking for a vessel, generates a unique reference number for each visit, and with that number facilitates the management of a vessel's visit from arrival to departure.
