Uzmar Shipyard, in Turkey, has started construction of its 100th tug to a Robert Allan design. This milestone tug will be built to a RAstar 3200-W design for SAAM-SMIT Towage Canada.
This azimuthing stern drive (ASD) tug will be built for supporting ships in terminals and to provide escort services on Canada’s west coast. It is scheduled to be delivered in Q1 2019. It will have a RAstar hull and deep skeg.
It will be optimised for generating high indirect escort forces and be capable of providing towing operations from the stern.
This RAstar 3200-W tug will be one of the first tugs to feature an IMO Tier III emissions-compliant propulsion package. It will have other notable features, such as gas detection, explosion-proof deck equipment and off-ship fire-fighting capabilities.
Uzmar is building eight other tugs to Robert Allan design at its shipyard in the Kocaeli free zone, Turkey. These tugs include six RAstar 3200 tugs and a pair of RAmparts 3000 tugs.
It has a large orderbook of Robert Allan-design tugs as it is set to build at least another 20 vessels with bollard pulls of between 50-85 tonnes.
These latest additions are part of Uzmar’s advanced building programme from which it has delivered dozens of tugs to owners all around the world.
Uzmar has adapted Robert Allan designs for this programme with RAstar 3000-UZM and RAmparts 2300-UZM designs. It is also working on new exclusive DRAfter 2500-UZM and Rave 3200-UZM tug designs.
Editor comment
Turkey has become a leader in tug construction through three main shipyard groups. All three of these – Uzmar, Sanmar and Med Marine – use Robert Allan designs for new harbour and escort tugs. They also build tugboats on a speculative basis with expectations there will be buyers for their vessels. To differentiate themselves, these shipyards have adapted Robert Allan designs with their own exclusive elements. The result is a high turnover of newbuilding tugs through their shipyards and new vessels entering service worldwide with high quality, strong bollard pull and great manoeuvrability.
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