Moran Towing is building on its 15-year history with Washburn & Doughty Associates (W&D) by ordering four new 93-foot tugs from the Maine shipyard.
In another endorsement of this W&D design, the yard is building a similar boat for McAllister Towing & Transportation, the first new tug McAllister has ever ordered from W&D.
The boats are all based on a W&D design that debuted in 2011 with James A. Moran, a 93-foot, 6,000-hp ASD tug that operates out of Savannah, Ga. Hayley Moran, launched in January at the Maine yard and scheduled for March delivery, is the fifth boat in the lineage — Athena and Apollo are in Seabulk Towing’s fleet, and Patriot serves Marine Towing of Tampa.
Above and below, the EMD 12-710 medium-speed diesels, rated at 3,000 hp each, are larger and heavier than the diesels previously used in tugs of this design. |
Hayley Moran is the 26th tug that W&D has built for Moran Towing, the tug and barge operator based in New Canaan, Conn. Most in the group are 92 feet long with a 32-foot beam, designed in-house by Bruce Washburn, W&D’s executive vice president. When demand grew for tugs with more horsepower and expanded accommodations for crew, Washburn rolled out a new design of a 93-foot tug with a 38-foot beam.
“With the 32-foot beam, we had pretty well maxed out what we could put in them for power with the 5,000-hp engines,” Washburn said. “While the 93-footer is only a foot longer, which is almost nothing, she is six feet wider. The extra beam gets you much more power.”
Propulsion for Hayley Moran is provided by a pair of 3,000-hp EMD 12-710 main engines, with Schottel 1515 z-drives turning 102-inch propellers in nozzles. Auxiliary power is handled by two John Deere PowerTech 4045 99-kW gensets. Bollard pull is projected at 73 metric tons and the tug’s speed is expected to be 13.5 knots.
Another benefit of the wider beam for Hayley Moran and her sisters is enhanced stability, improving the tug’s control over a ship while moving at higher speeds.
“The other thing that (Moran) started looking at, and what everybody is looking at now, is the escorting capability of the boat,” Washburn said. “Basically, how fast can you go sideways through the water to try and steer a ship. The extra beam adds stability that makes it doable.”
David Beardsley, vice president of construction and repair for Moran Towing, said Hayley Moran echoes the features of James A. Moran with the exception of the engines. For the latest boats in the series, Moran opted for the lower-speed EMD 12-710s over the higher-speed MTU 16V-4000s.
“That’s the basic difference,” Beardsley said. “Other than that, the boat is very similar to the first in its class.” The switch presented a challenge for W&D due to the size of the EMD power plant, which Washburn said is “basically a locomotive engine.”
“It’s double the weight and nearly double the size of what the MTU engine was,” he said. “It turns at about half the rpm — 900 or 1,000 versus the 1,800 rpm that the MTUs run at. … It took a lot of rearranging. You went from an engine room where it looked like you almost forgot to put something in because there was so much space to shoehorning everything.”
The need to accommodate a larger propulsion system extends to Hayley Moran’s stacks, which grew considerably to handle the larger engines. The EMDs use a 24-inch exhaust compared to a 16-inch exhaust on the higher-speed engines, Washburn said, and the muffler “goes from about 7 feet long to roughly 10 feet long.”
The boat’s fendering system consists of D fenders along the edge of the main deck and cylindrical fenders on the upper bow, all from Morse Rubber, with lower bow fenders from Viking Fender.
Electronics in the pilothouse include twin Furuno NavNet 3D radars and electronic chart displays. There is a Furuno FA-150 AIS and a pair of compasses: a magnetic Ritchie Globemaster YB-600 and a Furuno satellite SC-30. VHF radio communications are by way of an Icom 604.
Out on the bow, Hayley Moran sports a 50-hp Markey DEPC-48 single-drum electric hawser winch that can handle 400 feet of 9-inch line. There is an electric Markey CEWC-60 capstan aft.
Washburn said the winch package is the biggest difference between the new Moran boats and Tate McAllister, W&D’s first newbuild for New York-based McAllister. Tate McAllister will have a pair of 200-hp JonRie 250 hydraulic escort winches, one fore and one aft. A separate diesel engine will power the hydraulics.
In the wheelhouse, most of the electronics are from Furuno, including the radar, chart display and AIS. |
“While they’ve got it there, they figured they might as well drive a fire pump off the back end of it,” Washburn said, referring to a FiFi system on the boat that will be able to provide 3,000 gpm to a pair of 1,500-gpm monitors.
To create enough deck space for the aft winch, Washburn said the dimensions of the deckhouse had to be changed from the original design used for James A. Moran and Hayley Moran. That was the case as well for the other boats in the series — Athena , Apollo and Patriot.
Another difference between the boats involves their cooling systems. While Hayley Moran has keel coolers, W&D will install box coolers on Tate McAllister. Martin Costa, engineering manager for McAllister Towing, said it is the first time the company has opted for box coolers on a newbuild.
The compass is a Ritchie Globemaster YB-600. |
“We have some other boats that have box coolers and we’ve had good success with them,” Costa said. “They don’t protrude from the hull; they’re up inside the hull, so there’s no exposure below the boat. Plus, you get a lot better cooling with box coolers.”
Washburn said it will be only the second time that W&D has installed box coolers on one of its tugs. The first time was on Patriot, delivered to Marine Towing of Tampa last year.
Aesthetically, Tate McAllister will have a few tweaks to define it as a member of the McAllister fleet. The pilothouse and stacks have been reworked from the original series blueprint to match other McAllister boats, an important consideration for company chairman Brian McAllister.
“Brian just likes to have the boat look good; he always has,” Costa said. “That’s his design. We’re also going to have the console open in the front for the captain, which makes it easier to get in and out of the wheelhouse, odds and ends like that.”
The twin Schottel 1515 z-drives turn 102-inch propellers and provide a bollard pull of 73 metric tons. The tug’s speed is expected to be 13.5 knots. |
Along with extra stability, the wider beam in the design series also translates into extra space for the crew without compromising the galley and mess area. Hayley Moran has four staterooms — two in the deckhouse and two on the lower deck, for a total of seven berths — serviced by three heads and two showers. Tate McAllister’s reworked deckhouse trims the number of berths to six.
Washburn said there are individual cooling units in each crew space instead of a ducted system, a benefit that was cited by Costa.
“That way each room can be controlled by itself. Plus you don’t have that rush of air — it’s a lot quieter,” he said. “And with the floor (insulation and materials), they do a good job of reducing the noise.”
Hayley Moran (hull 107) will be followed out of the W&D yard by George T. Moran (hull 109) and Tate McAllister (hull 110), both slated for delivery this year. Hull 108 was Patriot.
Editor’s note: David Beardsley, vice president of construction and repair for Moran Towing, retired in March.