Stevens Towing completes Q3 project tows and heavy lifts

Also in Q3 2024, Stevens Towing’s lift team set girders for a bridge stabilisation project in Georgetown, South Carolina for United Infrastructure Group. The team set eight 29-m long beams, each weighing 125 tonnes, as part of the Highway 17 bridge going over the Waccamaw River that required retrofit work.

A tugboat and two lift cranes – one owned by Stevens, 150-tonne lifting capacity Clyde 32, and another hired – were used due to the length of the beams, which were assembled on barges and floated into place under the bridge. The cranes were set up on either side of the bridge to lift them off the barge and into place.

In another job for Ceres Barge Line, Stevens Towing towed a barge with two large tanks from St Paul, Minnesota to Cape Charles, Virginia. This was a 60-day round voyage with the barge transported from Charleston, South Carolina to St Paul, where the tanks were loaded onto the ABS-classed deck barge of 64 m by 16 m and transported to Cape Charles.

Stevens Towing said the voyage was complicated by “difficult river conditions” due to significant flooding in the mid-west. “Parts of the upper Mississippi River were closed due to the water being over the locks.”

Therefore, the company decided to detour through Mobile via the Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway to Paducah and then cut over to the Upper Mississippi.

“When we arrived in St Paul, Ceres oversaw the barge setup and the roll-on operation loading the two large 45-7-m long tanks onto the barge and securing them,” said Stevens.

The pusher tug and barge then sailed down the Mississippi River, around the Keys of Florida and up the US East Coast to Cape Charles.

“We were fortunate enough to have good weather on the return voyage,” said Stevens Towing. The tug and barge stopped in Jacksonville, Florida to comply with a sea state restriction put on the cargo.

“When we arrived in Cape Charles, Ceres and the heavy hauler were standing by and able to discharge both tanks the same day.”

International Tug & Salvage is preparing the annual TugWorld Review for 2024, an exclusive and exhaustive summary of the key tugboat deliveries from around the world. For your newbuild tug to be considered for inclusion in TugWorld Review 2024, please contact ITS editor Martyn Wingrove: martyn.wingrove@rivieramm.com

Riviera’s TugTechnology 2025 will be held in Antwerp, Belgium, 20-21 May 2025 providing technical and technological insights to the towage and tug sector. Use this link for more information and to register interest in the conference, exhibition, gala industry dinner and awards.