Sanmar unveils new tug designs

The Turkish shipbuilder decided to halt marketing and constructing its 25-year-old designs after investing in modern versions with more power and higher stability.

It has discontinued early Sanmar, Dogancay and Ulupinar harbour and coastal towage tugs after building more than 75 of these vessels since 1995. In that time, it has built 31 Sanmar series tugs, 26 Dogancay and 20 of the Ulupinar series.

A new breed of tug design has replaced these in the last decade. The new designs are optimised for power, performance, manoeuvrability and reliability.

As Sanmar vice president Ali Gurun told Tug Technology & Business earlier in June, these designs have greater fuel efficiency, lower emissions and better crew comfort than the now discontinued series.

The new series were all derived from Robert Allan off-the-shelf designs.

Sanmar’s Yenicay series is based on the RAscal 1800 and is a compact harbour tug with a high-performance Z-drive. Its hullform was optimised for sea-keeping, manoeuvrability and stability in all modes of operation as the tug is prepared for line handling and small ship handling.

Sanmar has 12 Yenicay series tugs either under construction or delivered, including two delivered with 32 tonnes of bollard pull to Abu Dhabi Ports’ subsidiary Safeen.

Its new Bozcay series is based on RApport 1900SX design for general harbour and coastal towing duties. Six of these industry workhorses are already under construction at the shipyard.

Sanmar’s Sırapınar series is an evolution of RAmparts 2200 design for harbour, terminal and coastal operations. It is less than 24-m in length and has bollard pulls of 50-60 tonnes. Forty tugs of this series have already been built by Sanmar.

"We have concentrated on increasing quality, manoeuvrability, crew comfort and safety, and vessel performance,” Mr Gurun explained. “Now, fuel efficiency and lower emissions, low maintenance requirements and cost optimisation have become important factors.

“Our tugs have dozens of upgrades from sound insulation to engine and thruster applications, from electrical improvements to piping, from window thickness to paint thickness. Our tugs are very special,” said Mr Gurun.

Yenicay tugs feature a robust, all-welded steel construction and scantlings significantly in excess of any classification society requirement. These tugs are equipped with heavy-duty deck equipment and all-round fendering for all ship-handling operations.

Bozcay series meets all international and classification standards for construction and stability for coastal and harbour towage.

Sırapınar class is a more compact version of Sanmar’s Boğacay series which have bollard pulls of 60-75 tonnes for port and terminal operations. Some of the first Sırapınar class tugs were built for Svitzer’s terminal operations.

Sanmar has designed innovative in onboard systems such as the first single-fuel LNG-powered tugs and the first to be controlled remotely.

Earlier this year, Sanmar completed the first tug with hydro-mechanical hybrid propulsion with Caterpillar’s advanced variable drive – Boğaçay XXXVIII started manoeuvring ships in Izmit Bay, Turkey, in Q1 2020.

The latest developments in design, propulsion and onboard technolgy will be discussed in detail during Riviera’s webinar week series in Q3 2020, for more details see our events page