First Steel Cut for Tianjin Port’s New Smart Tugs

A pair of steel-cutting ceremonies held a week apart at separate Chinese shipyards initiated the construction of new workboats for Tianjin Port.

Following the successful completion in 2015 of concurrent construction programs involving five vessels of three different designs, Canadian naval architecture firm Robert Allan Ltd. said it began developing two more designs, working closely with the towing branch of Tianjin Port.

On August 23, the steel-cutting ceremony for the first of two ASD 40/35 pilot/tugboats was held at Jiangsu Zhenjiang Shipyard in China. Then on August 29, a steel-cutting ceremony for the first of two ASD 35/50 tugs took place at Sanlin Shipyard affiliated with Shanghai Harbour Fuxing Shipping Service Company Co., Ltd.

When the four tugs are delivered to the owner by the middle of next year, they will be the first tugs with intelligent ship (i-Ship) notation since China Classification Society (CCS) launched these rules in March 2016. Under the i-Ship notation the tugs will be equipped with smart-sailing, smart-hull, smart-engine room, smart-efficiency management and smart-control center systems.