Harbor Docking & Towing Capt. Scott Lantier eased Ralph off Washburn & Doughty’s dock and steered south in the Damariscotta River. The main engines stayed silent as the tugboat climbed to 8 knots against a 3-foot swell. Down in the engine room, a single Caterpillar C18 engine provided electric power for motors mounted aft of the z-drives. A second C18 automatically fired up as Lantier requested more power, and an internal control system equalized the load between the two engines. “I am impressed with it so far,” Lantier said as he stared south toward open water, “especially with the electric mode. It’s very smooth.” Washburn & Doughty built Ralph and sister vessel Capt. Robb at its East Boothbay, Maine, shipyard. Both are based on the yard’s proven 93-foot hull form,…
Shaver Transportation has added a brawny new tugboat capable of handling just about any work that comes its way. Samantha S. is an 8,432-hp powerhouse built with a striking square bow. With over 110 tons of bollard pull, the tug is easily the most powerful on the Columbia River. It is slated to join Shaver’s fleet based in Portland, Ore., around June 1. Diversified Marine built the vessel in Portland based on a Jensen Maritime Consultants design. Samantha S. is intended to be a true utility player, handling ship assist and docking, offshore rescue tows and barge tows. The unusual square bow will be handy escorting big ships through the notorious Columbia River Bar. “If a ship crosses the bar without escort, enters the narrow fairway of the channel and…
Containerships and tankers calling U.S. ports are getting bigger. By necessity, tugboats that handle these massive ships are growing, too. Mark E. Kuebler is the first of five Tier 4 tugs built for Bay-Houston Towing Co. of Houston. Gulf Island Shipyards is building the series at its Jennings, La., yard based on the new Z-Tech 30-80 design from Robert Allan Ltd. of Vancouver, B.C. Philip Kuebler is president of Bay-Houston Towing Co. and son of the vessel’s namesake. He cited an increased need for larger tugs capable of escorting and assisting neo-Panamax containerships and very large crude carrier (VLCC) tankers. VLCCs can reach 1,500 feet long and 200 feet wide. “Just a few short years ago, before the export ban was lifted, refined products were leaving our ports in smaller…
Modern tugboats are increasingly designed and outfitted to perform multiple jobs, from barge shifting to ship escorting and docking to rescue towing. Moran’s newest vessel focuses on what it does best: Escorting and docking big ships. Judy Moran, named for the wife of senior vice president Ned Moran, is a sibling to Benson George Moran now working in Port Arthur, Texas. Both have EPA Tier 4-compliant engines and the same 93-by-38-foot hull form. Both also were designed and built in East Boothbay, Maine, by Washburn & Doughty. Judy is the 40th tractor tug delivered to Moran from the yard. At 6,772 hp, Judy Moran is the most powerful tugboat in the company’s already stout Norfolk fleet made up entirely of tractor tugs. It entered service Sept. 4, 2018, and has…
The Great Lakes Towing Co. operates some of the oldest harbor tugboats in the country, thanks largely to its presence in freshwater ports. Its newest tugs will be some of the most environmentally friendly. Great Lakes Shipyard, a division of the towing company, is building four tugboats at its yard west of downtown Cleveland. Ohio was scheduled to enter service in the Port of Toledo around June 1. Sister tugs Michigan and Pennsylvania will be finished in July and October, respectively. The fifth vessel, expected by mid-2020, has not been named yet. The new tugs are based on the same 65-foot Damen 1907 ICE-class platform as Cleveland, built two years ago. But Ohio features a hybrid generator system, eliminating the need for a second diesel genset. Michigan and the two…
When Sause Bros. President Dale Sause ordered a pair of 128-foot offshore tugs in 2018, he had complete confidence in the finished product. It’s not often an owner can be that certain, particularly when working with a new shipyard. The 128-by-35-foot Apache and Geronimo, still under construction at Diversified Marine as of mid-May 2019, are updated versions of the Mikiona-class oceangoing tugboats Sause engineers developed in-house more than a decade ago. The former J.M. Martinac Shipyard in Tacoma, Wash., delivered Mikiona in early 2007 and Cochise later that year. The newest iterations feature twin Tier 3 2,000-hp MTU engines, Reintjes reduction gears and Nautican nozzles. They also have more advanced navigation electronics than their predecessors and updated Rapp winches fore and aft. But at heart, they are mirror images of…
Young Brothers began carrying cargo between the Hawaiian Islands long before they even became a state. Its new class of oceangoing tugboats will keep the critical service going strong well into the future. Young Brothers is a Foss subsidiary based in Honolulu. The company has taken delivery of three new 6,000-hp tugs, with a fourth due in summer 2019. Conrad Shipyard of Morgan City, La., delivered Kapena Jack Young last August, followed by Kapena Raymond Alapai in November and Kapena George Panui in March 2019. Kapena Bob Purdy is the final boat in the series. Each is named for a former Young Brothers captain. Damen Shipyards designed the 123-by-36.5-foot vessels based on its Stan Tug 3011 model. The Young Brothers tugs are the first in the U.S. built to a…
McAllister Towing and Transportation Co. operates more than 50 tugboats across a dozen East Coast ports. There aren’t many like Rosemary McAllister in the company fleet — or anywhere else for that matter. Eastern Shipbuilding delivered the 100-by-40-foot ship-docking, escort and firefighting tugboat in summer 2018 based on a design from Jensen Maritime Consultants. The 6,772-hp vessel has Caterpillar Tier 4 engines, Schottel z-drives and delivers 80 metric tons of bollard pull. Eastern, based in Panama City, Fla., was on track to deliver sister tug Ava M. McAllister in June 2019, with Capt. Jim McAllister to follow a few months later. Those two share the same hull and propulsion package as lead tug Capt. Brian A. McAllister and its twin Rosemary McAllister, but have different winches and firefighting capabilities. “It’s…
Reinauer Transportation Co.’s two new articulated tug-barge (ATB) tugboats look much like their predecessors — at least until you reach the engine room. Senesco Marine of North Kingstown, R.I., delivered Josephine and Kristy Ann a few weeks apart in December 2018. They are the first and second “facet tugs” in Reinauer’s fleet with Tier 4 propulsion, and the first Reinauer tugs built to U.S. Coast Guard Subchapter M standards. “It’s the first Tier 4 and it’s the first medium-speed engine in this class, so we had a few hurdles to jump through interfacing the controls,” Christian Reinauer, the towing company’s vice president and new construction manager, said during a December vessel tour. “Any time you put a new engine in a boat, a lot of new engineering is going to…
It’s relatively common these days for tugboat operators to order a new vessel based on proven designs used by other customers. Likewise, it’s common for these designs to be modified based on operational needs. In the days of sailing ships and builders’ half-hull models, the modifications were often to the hull. Ocean Defiant, built in 2018 at the Sylte Shipyard on British Columbia’s Fraser River, kept the same hull as a predecessor but with a significant change to the superstructure. The new tug used the same 58.9-by-25.5-foot hull dimensions as Inlet Knight, delivered by Sylte in 2012. But the owners, Mercury Transport, asked designer A.G. McIlwain to add an elevated wheelhouse. Given the big beam and 13-foot molded depth, this had a negligible effect on stability. Twin MTU engines provide…
