New Tug Delivered to Vane Brothers
Baltimore-headquartered marine transportation provider The Vane Brothers Company has taken delivery of the Fort Schuyler, the latest Maryland-built tugboat to join the company’s fleet.
Fort Schuyler is the 11th Sassafras Class tugboat contracted by Vane Brothers through Chesapeake Shipbuilding of Salisbury, Md. The Fort Schuyler’s sister tug, the Kings Point, was delivered in April 2015.
According to Vane Brothers President C. Duff Hughes, “Working alongside another Maryland-based company to deliver safer and more productive working vessels such as the Fort Schuyler has been a great experience for Vane. Chesapeake Shipbuilding is helping us to further our mission of providing the highest quality service to our customers.”
Measuring 94 feet long and 32 feet wide with a hull depth of 13 feet, the Fort Schuyler is similar in most respects to the previous 10 tugboats built for Vane as part of the Chesapeake Shipbuilding contract. The vessel is equipped with twin Caterpillar 3512 Tier 3 main engines producing a combined 3,000 horsepower, and operates with a single-drum hydraulic towing winch. "Soft‐core" panels and heavy, fire-rated doors are used throughout, offering the crew a safer and quieter living environment.
A first for Vane Brothers, the Fort Schuyler’s state-of‐the‐art wheelhouse features multifunctional Simrad marine electronics that utilize intuitive interfaces for heightened performance.
The Fort Schuyler, like the Kings Point, has joined Vane Brothers’ fleet based in New York. The names of both vessels pay homage to a pair of highly respected, mid-Atlantic maritime education facilities. The State University of New York (SUNY) Maritime College has a Marine Transportation Department based at Fort Schuyler, while the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy is located in Kings Point, New York.