The cleanest fleet of harbor tugboats operating anywhere in the world isn’t in Rotterdam or Singapore or Sydney. They’re just across the Canadian border in British Columbia.
HaiSea Marine, a joint venture between Seaspan and the Haisla Nation, has developed five new tugboats that will support LNG Canada’s export facility in Kitimat, B.C. The fleet consists of two 8,050-hp escort tugs that can run on diesel or liquefied natural gas, and three electric tugs designed to operate entirely on battery power.
SAAM Towage, meanwhile, celebrated the arrival of SAAM Volta and Chief Dan George in the Port of Vancouver in April. The vessels provide ship docking services in Vancouver Harbor using electricity from renewable sources.
All seven tugboats were designed by Robert Allan Ltd., also of Vancouver, B.C. The company sees more projects like these happening in the future as cleaner propulsion gains a foothold around the world.
“The tug design landscape has been changing very significantly in just the last couple of years,” Robert Allan Ltd. company leaders said in a statement. “A majority of new inquiries and projects are now featuring some form of alternative fuel or energy storage.”
The U.S. towing industry also has begun embracing cleaner propulsion. Crowley’s electric tugboat eWolf arrived in San Diego earlier this spring, and Kirby Corp.’s battery-electric hybrid Green Diamond went to work in the Houston Ship Channel last fall. Additional U.S. operators are pursuing electric propulsion projects in various stages of development.
The two Canadian operators have a head start on clean propulsion. The two SAAM Towage tugs were built in Turkey using the Robert Allan Ltd. ElectRa 2300-SX platform. These 75-foot tugboats will assist ships calling in tight “finger piers” in Vancouver.
The vessels are equipped with Corvus Orca lithium-ion batteries with total on-board storage of 3,616 kilowatt-hours. Propulsion consists of twin Schottel L-drives installed atop 2,800-hp electric motors for a total of roughly 5,600 hp and 70 metric tons of bollard pull. Charging time is just one or two hours. Two 1,260-hp Caterpillar C32 gensets provide backup electrical power to the propulsion system.
Electric propulsion, of course, is much different than swapping out diesel main engines for electric motors and battery compartments. The entire layout of the engine room changes, and the broader tugboat design must change with it.
“Weight is also a factor,” according to Robert Allan Ltd. “A battery-electric tug can quite easily be 100 tons heavier than a diesel mechanical counterpart when considering L-drives, batteries, switchboards and extra cables. However, this additional weight is mostly offset by a reduction in the amount of fuel that is carried on board.”
SAAM Towage Canada is a subsidiary of the Chile-based parent company, which operates more than 200 tugboats in 13 countries. It expects the two electric tugs in Vancouver, B.C., to reduce emissions by 2,400 metric tons each year compared to a similarly sized diesel tugboat. The tugs also run much quieter in the water, the company said.
“Today, we are taking a decisive step into the future. The christening and commissioning of our first electric tugs are proof of our commitment to move towards increasingly sustainable operations, seeking the best solutions tailored to each customer and the conditions at each port,” SAAM’s CEO, Macario Valdés, said during an April christening in Vancouver.
For now anyway, the HaiSea fleet of green tugboats also is based in Vancouver. Company spokeswoman Jessica Gares said the vessels were purpose-built in Turkey to serve the LNG Canada export terminal in Kitimat, located near Prince Rupert, B.C.
“The fleet is currently together operating in North Vancouver and is performing jobs in the Vancouver Harbor but will make the final journey home to Kitimat later this year,” she said in an email. “The fleet will be ‘the guardians of the Douglas Channel,’ as their missions are focused on guiding and escorting LNG carriers through the world’s longest known escort route of approximately 159 nautical miles.”
The larger two tugs, HaiSea Kermode and HaiSea Warrior, are 131 feet long and 52.5 feet wide and built to the RAstar 4000-DF platform. They have tankage below deck for 53 cubic meters of liquefied natural gas in a double-walled tank. Propulsion comes from Wartsila 6L34DF main engines that also can burn diesel fuel. The tug is capable of 14 knots lightboat and 105 metric tons of bollard pull. It can produce 176 metric tons of steering force at 10 knots.
The three 92-foot HaiSea electric tugs — HaiSea Wamis, Wee’git and Brave were built to the Robert Allan Ltd. ElectRA 2800 platform. The tugs deliver 68 metric tons of bollard pull and can hit 12 knots lightboat thanks to Corvus lithium-ion batteries that can store 5,288 kilowatt-hours of electricity, twin 2,800-hp electric motors and Schottel L-drives. DMT supplied the winchset. They can fully charge within four hours, according to Seaspan.
“These vessels have set new high bars in terms of environmental performance and credentials,” Robert Allan Ltd. officials said of the fleet. The HaiSea fleet as a whole is expected to emit 10,000 fewer tons of CO2 per year than an equivalent diesel mechanical fleet. They are also the first tugs in the world to be awarded Enviro+ notation, the highest environmental credential available from the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS).
“HaiSea Wamis — the first of the ElectRA 2800 — is also the first tug to be awarded ABS’ UWN (underwater radiated noise) notation by virtue of its exceptionally low underwater noise signature,” the Robert Allan Ltd. statement continued.
HaiSea describes its new fleet for the LNG Canada terminal as the greenest in the world. Now, it’s up to the rest of the world to catch up.