SAAM expands Latin America towage capabilities

Harbour towage and emergency response capabilities in Guatemala will be enhanced when a new tugboat is delivered this month.

Chile-headquartered towage group SAAM has purchased a 23-m tug from Turkish shipbuilder and tug owner Med Marine to boost its operations in Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala.

This is a MED-A2360 series tugboat built to a Robert Allan RAmparts 2300-MM design as part of a family of six vessels.

Saam Itza has an azimuth stern drive (ASD) propulsion configuration for harbour and terminal operations and coastal towing. It has a beam of 10.9 m and depth of 4.4 m.

It has two Caterpillar 3512 main engines, each developing 1,765 kW of power at 1,800 rpm driving a pair of Rolls-Royce US205 P20 fixed-pitch propellers, each of 240-cm diameter. These combine to give Saam Itza a bollard pull of 60 tonnes and maximum speed of 12 knots.

Also in the engineroom are two Caterpillar C4.4 gensets, which can generate 86 kW of electrical power, and a fire-fighting pump that provides 1,200 m³/hr of water and foam to two monitors on the wheelhouse.

On the deck there is a THR Marine towing winch and a Toimil T-10500M deck crane.

Saam Itza will be deployed in Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala’s largest Pacific Ocean port for bulk and container cargo. This port incorporates multiple terminals for container, bulk sugar, LPG, bulk fuel and coal. Puerto Quetzal is also an important stop-off point for cruise liners.

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This is the second tug Med Marine has sold in Q2 2019 after Cape Verde Island’s towage and pilotage company and port authority, Enapor, acquired a 25-m tugboat.

In March, Colombian towage and salvage company, Coltugs, bought an escort-rated ASD tug from Med Marine and renamed it Caño Cristales.