16 May

Dann Marine shows off impressive new wire towing vessel: Treasure Coast

Professional Mariner StaffTugboats & Towing
Treasure Coast. (Brian Gauvin). Dann Marine Towing, a mid-Atlantic family-operated company that has been in the tug business for some five generations, recently introduced the 16th tug in its fleet, a 104-footer delivered from Rodriguez Boat Builders of Alabama. This 3,000-hp, twin-screw tug, Treasure Coast, with elevated pilothouse, was designed and built specifically for towing oil barges on the Eastern…
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07 May

Great Lakes Shipyard unveils low-power tug

Professional Mariner StaffTugboats & Towing
  Crowley’s Vigilant, a 6,772-hp z-drive tug chartered from Baydelta Maritime, will provide escort services in Cook Inlet, Alaska. As fuel prices continue to skyrocket, a century-old Midwestern tug company is introducing a new line of low-powered tugs as it expands its Cleveland shipyard.Great Lakes Shipyard of Cleveland held a naming ceremony for its first “handysize” tug, Handy-One, on April…
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07 May

Crew boat built to perform and to entertain

Professional Mariner StaffTugboats & Towing
  Greater Scott is a 160-footer built by Neuville Boat Works for Texas Crewboats. The 160-by-30-foot Greater Scott was delivered from Neuville Boat Works, New Iberia. La., to Texas Crewboats, Freeport, Texas, in January. She is the seventh boat in the fleet of the company founded by Elliott Cundieff in 1979. Greater Scott is contracted to Nippon Oil, servicing a…
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02 May

Fuel management for tugs becoming an increasing challenge

Professional Mariner StaffMaritime News, Tugboats & Towing
The Sause Bros. tug Mikiona was designed for fuel efficiency with electronically controlled engines from MTU Detroit Diesel, Reintjes reduction gears, three-blade skewed propellers from Sound Propellers, NautiCan nozzles and NautiCan linked quad rudders. (Ron Karabaich) The cost of fuel has become a major expense item for every company in the transportation business, possibly more so for tugboats because their…
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22 Apr

As DP systems grow in importance, the technology continues to improve

Professional Mariner StaffTugboats & Towing
A RADius 1000 distance-measuring transmitter on Seacor’s John G. McCall. Manufactured by Kongsberg, the RADius system uses radar technology for close-in positioning situations in which GPS signals may not be accurate. (Photo courtesy Gulf Craft) Dynamic positioning may be the most important shipboard navigation system since the compass. Once used only on the largest offshore vessels working in the deepest…
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03 Mar

New tug simulator will incorporate operating characteristics of winch and line

Professional Mariner StaffTugboats & Towing
  This digital rendering depicts the way the Energia Costa Azul liquefied natural gas project in Baja California will look upon completion of the marine terminal. The 2,100-foot-long breakwater is designed to protect a one-ship berth. Four escort tugs with a bollard pull of 75 tons are being built in Spain for Moran Towing. MarineSafety International is programming its tug…
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20 Nov

With a history of innovation, AmNav is ready for the future

Professional Mariner StaffTugboats & Towing
Capt. Marc Fankhauser in the pilothouse of the AmNav tug Revolution. (Photos by Alan Haig-Brown) It would be an understatement to call the San Francisco Bay ship docking market highly competitive. As vessel and crew costs escalate, the several fleets that crowd the market fight for share. Among the most forceful of these is AmNav Maritime Services.   Upstart schoolteacher…
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