Towing Line News

Scottish subsea specialist Sulmara has supported a major fuel recovery operation from typhoon-struck cargo ship in shallow waters off Taiwan.At the request of the Taiwanese government, Sulmara mobilized a WAM-V 16 uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) and a team of survey specialists to assist in the emergency fuel recovery operation for the heavy transport vessel, Yu Zhou Qi Hang.The operation was launched to help salvage cargo from the heavy transport vessel which ran aground with almost 300 t of fuel oil on board during one of the worst typhoons to hit Taiwan in decades.The 143-meter-long vessel…

Turkish shipbuilder Uzmar Shipyards in October cut first steel for a new offshore support vessel for Norway's Buksér og Berging, Norway.The Robert Allan Ltd. (RAL) designed RAmpage 4100BB-H is designed to satisfy the general demands of the offshore industry and to be built for inshore and offshore worldwide operation. The vessel will be intended to carry out towing, anchor handling, and limited deck cargo transfer.During the design, serious attention was given to minimize hull resistance and fuel consumption at cruising speed…

Seven people were rescued from a tug that went adrift off the U.S. East Coast.A crew member aboard the tug Legacy notified watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Maryland-National Capital Region at about 3:30 a.m. Saturday that while towing a 290-foot barge from New Jersey, to Guyana, a 1,000-foot towing line became entangled and fouled their starboard propeller about 30 miles offshore from Ocean City, Md.The vessel continued to make way on one engine when the tow line snapped. The…

The U.S. Navy said it thwarted an Iranian attempt to capture one if its unmanned surface vessels (USV) in the Arabian Gulf.While transiting international waters around 11 p.m. (local time), Aug. 29, U.S. 5th Fleet observed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) support ship Shahid Baziar towing a Saildrone Explorer USV in an attempt to detain it. U.S. Navy patrol coastal ship USS Thunderbolt (PC 12) was operating nearby and immediately responded. U.S. 5th Fleet also launched an MH-60S Sea Hawk from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 26, based in Bahrain.The actions taken by U.S.

Samson has launched ICARIA for Workboat, a full suite of digital services dedicated to tug line management. ICARIA for Workboat includes a new Inspection App designed to ease usage and condition data collection, an online portal CONNECT designed for trend and data analysis, and the company's online CLASSROOM, which includes courses designed to build crew competencies.ICARIA for Workboat will help users track line usage and maintenance, document damage, and provide the data to make line retirement decisions.The new Samson app available for iOS…

On May 25 in IJmuiden, the Netherlands, Damen Shipyards Group delivered an ASD Tug 2312 named Jupiter to Iskes. The vessel will operate in the ports of IJmuiden and Amsterdam carrying out regular port towage duties and the tug is also capable of handling (crane) barges.Damen signed the contract for the vessel with Iskes in July 2018, at the ITS Marseille and developed the ASD Tug 2312 together with Iskes.Damen sales manager Joost van der Weiden said, “Iskes gave us a lot of valuable input for the design of this new class of tug.

Towage and salvage specialist Multraship has taken delivery of the first of two new Carrousel Rave Tugs (CRT). The vessel, which was commissioned as Multratug 32 and delivered by Netherlands shipyard Damen Maaskant in Stellendam, will operate under lease to Multraship. The contract for the vessels was agreed between Novatug, an arm of the group to which Multraship also belongs, and Damen’s specialist propulsion subsidiary Van der Velden Barkemeyer GmbH in November 2015. German shipyard Theodor Buschmann GmbH in Hamburg assembled the hulls, which were then moved to Stellendam for outfitting.

French maritime engineering specialist Iroise Mer used a 50 ton Straightpoint Radiolink plus (RLP) load cell during a refit of a tanker mooring system located 500m off the Corsica coast, recently. Iroise Mer's job was to update the site, comprising four different mooring lines, complete with anchors, chains and concrete deadweights, and all existing components had to be removed and new ones installed. The RLP was used to measure pre-tension up to 30 ton to check new anchors were properly installed into the seabed.

Fratelli Neri S.p.A has taken delivery of a Damen ASD Tug 3212. The new vessel, called Luisa Neri, was handed over from Damen Maaskant Shipyards Stellendam in the Netherlands, on 25 January 2016. The vessel represents two firsts: it is Fratelli Neri’s first Damen newbuild tug and it is the first ASD Tug in the Mediterranean with a Damen render-recovery winch. Damen is renowned for its quick delivery times and this contract further reinforces that fact: the smooth process from contract to delivery taking just 5 months. With the vessel built for stock, Damen Maaskant Shipyards Stellendam carried out the final outfitting works to bring the Luisa Neri up to client specifications.

Loose barge drifts by platforms in North Sea; BP platform evacuated, output shut down. A fierce storm in the North Sea forced oil firms to evacuate platforms and shut down production on Thursday on concerns that they could be hit by a drifting barge that had broken its anchor. The strong winds had ripped the barge from its moorings and sent it towards BP's Valhall platform, which lies in the middle of the North Sea between Norway and Britain. This prompted the oil and gas company to shut down output and evacuate dozens of staff on board. ConocoPhillips also stopped production and removed crew from installations in the same area. A spokeswoman for the Rescue Coordination Centre for southern Norway told Reuters the barge eventually missed the BP platform by some two kilometres.

Olympic Tug and Barge, a Harley Marine Services Company, has selected four JK Fabrication emergency tow storage reels for new barges being built at Zidell Shipyard in Portland (the first two) and Vigor Shipyard there also (the last two units). Given earlier success at U.S. Coast Guard testing in southern California, earlier orders from Olympic, Smith Maritime, U.S. barge and HME Construction, and acclaim from ABS and marine surveyors, JK has applied for U.S. patent on the unit.

The KO-LINK towing ring, developed by international maritime service provider KOTUG International BV, is now available exclusively from maritime ropes supplier Lankhorst Ropes under a worldwide marketing agreement. The KO-LINK ring significantly increases synthetic towing line service life by preventing the HMPE pennant from cutting through the line. KO-LINK is a highly polished, lightweight, aluminum ring, which is inserted and attached to the splice eye of the towline. The ring connects the main towline and the pennant in such a way that a controlled weak link is created…

The innovative KO-LINK towing ring, developed by international maritime service provider KOTUG International BV, is now available exclusively from leading maritime ropes supplier, Lankhorst Ropes, under a worldwide marketing agreement. The KO-LINK ring significantly increases synthetic towing line service life by preventing the HMPE pennant from cutting through the line. KO-LINK is a highly polished, lightweight, aluminium ring, which is inserted and attached to the splice eye of the towline. The ring connects the main towline and the pennant in such a way that a controlled weak link is created, preventing towing-line overload. Moreover, the KO-LINK replaces the commonly used cow-hitch knot, which if poorly made can cause unequal loading on the eyes resulting in premature line failure.

Super tug Fairmount Glacier has delivered rig Falcon 100 safely offshore Pointe-Noire, Congo. The rig was towed from Rio de Janeiro via the South Atlantic Ocean over a distance of more than 3,400 miles. The Falcon 100 is a 1974 build semi submersible drilling rig, owned by U.S.-based Transocean and capable to drill to a depth of 7.620 meters. For this job the Fairmount Glacier was mobilized from Trinidad. First the tug towed the Falcon 100 from her drilling location offshore Macae, Brazil, to offshore Rio de Janeiro.

Damen Shipyards has delivered the ASD 3213 ‘Tanok’ to Colombian tug operator Intertug S.A. Intertug operates the country’s most modern tug fleet in terms of horsepower and fleet age. The Damen ASD 3213 has a bollard pull of 86.5 t and 80 t astern and is one of the most powerful harbor tugs in the world. In addition, Intertug ordered an ASD 3212, which will be delivered from Damen Shipyards Galati (Romania) at the end of May, 2012. The booming Latin American market meant that Intertug needed the vessel as soon as possible. Damen could offer a delivery time, from stock, of just two weeks.

We all appreciated Don Sutherland's celebration of the 150 years of Moran towing (Maritime Reporter & Engineering News, April 2010). It was an exciting collection of vignettes on the life of the company and of its founder, Michael Moran. There were many other aspects of that remarkable company and of its equally remarkable founder that might further inform, if not entertain, the readers of Maritime Reporter. Rarely has a Moran tug been lost, but during the 1890s one vessel was overcome by heavy weather conditions immediately outside of New York harbor.

Dec. 2008, crew members assigned to the Military Sealift Command rescue and salvage ship USNS Grasp (T-ARS 51) hook a towing line to submarine NR-1 as the boat makes its way along the Thames River in Groton for the final time. The oldest nuclear-powered submarine in the U.S. Navy, NR-1, is being retired after nearly 40 years of service. U.S. Navy photo by John Narewski.

The U.S. Coast Guard issued a Press Release stating that it monitored the retrieval of an empty oil barge after the towing line connecting it to a tug separated. The barge was inbound in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The tow was re-established after about 2 and one-half hours. The rescue tug located at Neah Bay was activated and escorted the tug and barge into port. Source: HK Law

VT Halmatic has delivered an Arctic 24 rigid inflatable boat (RIB) to the island of Tristan da Cunha. Located in the South Atlantic, approximately 1,740 miles west of Cape Town, Tristan da Cunha is acknowledged as the world's most remote inhabited island. The island supports a thriving community concentrating on fishing and agriculture and the new RIB joins an existing VT Halmatic Pacific 38 RIB. The new Arctic 24 will be used as an additional fisheries patrol boat and fast rescue craft as well as search and rescue and policing duties. Based on a deep V hull form, the Arctic 24 is known as an off-shore RIB that is available in the market place and is capable of operating in the extreme sea states found around the island.

There have been plenty of books published on the subject of tugboats in the past few years, sharing a cookie-cutter similarity - they're large, handsome, colorful, well-produced coffee-table volumes, which pretty much cover the same introductory material in the same glancing way. In all those regards and quite a few more, Virginia Thorndike's On Tugboats is a different sort of book. For starters, it's not large nor particularly handsome, and not all that well-produced - a standard paperback printed in black-and-white on paper that will probably not last for centuries. But then, it is a book crying out to be read, where coffee-table books ask merely to be seen.