Powerful tugs enhance Hong Kong towage

Ship towage in Hong Kong has been enhanced with the addition of two new high-performance tugs. HUD Group subsidiary Hong Kong Salvage & Towage officially named two harbour tugs in Hong Kong in July.

Mai Po and Sung Kong are the most powerful tugs to be brought into service in Hong Kong harbour, which has witnessed a rise in the arrival of larger ships, such as ultra-large container ships at Kwai Tsing container terminals.

These 32-m tugs were built by Cheoy Lee Shipyards to a Robert Allan RAstar 3200 design in accordance with Lloyd’s Register’s class requirements.

They have a moulded beam of 12.8 m and maximum draught of 4.19 m to access smaller harbours.

Mai Po and Sung Kong were built to manoeuvre ships in the harbour and assist in berthing and undocking at the terminals. They are also equipped with fire-fighting systems to FiFi1 class and can be used to support salvage and pollution control operations.

They join four other harbour tugs designed by Robert Allan and built by Cheoy Lee in Hong Kong.

In sea trials Mai Po and Sung Kong achieved speeds of more than 13 knots and bollard pulls in excess of 80 tonnes.

Mai Po and Sung Kong particulars

Owner: Hong Kong Salvage & Towage

Builder: Cheoy Lee Shipyards

Designer: Robert Allan

Design: RAstar 3200

Length, oa: 32 m

Beam, moulded: 12.8 m

Depth, moulded (hull): 5.37 m

Maximum draught: 4.19 m

Tank capacities:

Fuel oil: 196 m³

Potable water: 41 m³

Sewage: 3 m³

Fi-Fi foam: 8 m³

Hong Kong is one of the major ports of the world. It is administered by the marine department of the Government of Hong Kong special administrative region, which also maintains aids to navigation and mooring buoys for seagoing ships.

The port is a major transhipment centre in the region, representing around 60% of all container traffic within the harbour.

Hong Kong handled 19.6M TEU of container cargo in 2018, making it one of the world’s busiest container ports. Around 15.5M TEU was handled at the Kwai Tsing container terminals.

There are nine container terminals in Hong Kong with a combined 24 berths along about 7,694 m of deepwater frontage.

The quaysides and channels have been dredged to enable ultra-large container vessels to access Kwai Tsing container terminals at all tides.

Elsewhere in the port there are 14 mooring buoys for seagoing vessels and four ferry terminals.