Newbuildings will boost Scandinavian towage capabilities

Newbuilding tugs were ordered for port operations in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark in 2019. This comes after the world’s most powerful hybrid ice-breaking tug was named in Sweden.

Norway-headquartered Bukser og Berging has placed an order for two tractor tugs with Turkish shipbuilder Sanmar.

These will be built to a new design from Robert Allan, the TRAktor 3000-Z escort tug. These 30.45-m long tugs will be built with a bollard pull of approximately 75 tonnes and delivery in Q4 2020. They will have two 2,200-kW high-speed engines that will drive controlled-pitch propellers in an IMO Tier III emissions compliant installation.

Robert Allan said the design was modified and verified by computational fluid dynamics. “Analyses included verification of ahead speed, astern speed, bollard pull, escort performance, and directional stability to help ensure the vessel will perform to the owner’s requirements,” Robert Allan said.

Svitzer turned to Turkey’s Med Marine to supply two custom-designed and ice-classed tugs in the next two years.

Med Marine will build these two 30-m ice-breaking tugs at its Eregli Shipyard using a customised Robert Allan TundRA 3000 design for delivery in Q4 2020 and Q1 2021. These will replace the oldest vessels in Svitzer’s fleet, ice-breaking tugs Svitzer Helios and Svitzer Dynan, which will be retired.

Svitzer’s new icebreakers will be azimuth stern drive (ASD) tugs with Finnish-Swedish ice class 1A status and 60 tonnes of bollard pull.

Sanmar is also building two icebreakers for Finland-based operator Alfons Håkans. These will also be based on Robert Allan’s TundRA designs.

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In Sweden, the Port of Luleå christened powerful icebreaking harbour tug Vilja. This was built by Gondan shipyards to a TundRA 3600-H design with a hybrid propulsion system. Onboard batteries provide the vessel with flexibility and efficiency to perform its tasks year-round.

Vilja will be capable of operating entirely on electrical battery power feeding two shaft-driven motor generator sets.

Its vessel-only loads can be met with a single main engine in the hybrid diesel-electrical mode.

Two of these can drive both propulsion shafts via the same motor generator sets producing a bollard pull of up to 55 tonnes.

Bollard pull of up to 100 tonnes can be achieved using the two main engines in direct diesel-mechanical mode supplemented with available battery boosts.

Danish company DBB Salvage boosted its towage and marine construction support capabilities with new vessels from Neptune Marine’s shipyard in the Netherlands. These EuroCarrier 2495 design vessels – DBS Asterix and DBS Indefix – have enlarged propellers to increase the bollard pull and upgrades to achieve tug notation.