VESSEL REVIEW | PSA Taurus – Singapore’s busy PSA Marine takes on another harbour tug

Earlier this year, Cheoy Lee Shipyard completed and delivered PSA Taurus, a new Z-drive tug to be utilised for port/terminal ship-handling duties at the Port of Singapore by local harbour services provider PSA Marine.

The vessel is the newest member of a family of Z-drive tugs developed as a joint effort by PSA Marine and Canadian design firm Robert Allan Ltd (RAL). The goal of the two companies was to create a new family of vessels incorporating the best handling and operational characteristics of both Z-drive tractor tugs and ASD tugs. Now, nearly 20 years and close to 100 vessels later, the same RAL- and PSA-developed tug family boasts a new sub-series which also includes PSA Taurus and the two sister vessels PSA Capella and PSA Polaris, which Cheoy Lee delivered in 2019.

PSA Taurus was built jointly by Cheoy Lee at its Hin Lee Zhuhai Shipyard located in Guangdong Province, China. The tug has an LOA of 27.4 metres, a beam of 11.5 metres, a draught of 5.4 metres, and a full load displacement of 553 tonnes. It also has all-steel construction, as is the case with nearly all RAL-designed tugs that were built at Cheoy Lee.

Propulsion is provided by two Yanmar 6EY26W engines with each having a rated output of 1,530 kW at 750 rpm and driving a pair of Schottel SRP360 fixed-pitch propellers. This configuration gives PSA Taurus a bollard pull of over 50 tonnes and a free running speed of 12.5 knots.

To power the electronics – much of which was supplied by Furuno – and deck machinery, the tug is fitted with two Perkins E70TAG1M 96ekW charge air-cooled generators that could operate in ambient temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius while also ensuring reduced noise and carbon emissions in compliance with IMO Tier II rules.

Deck equipment includes a forward towing winch and an aft anchor reel winch from MacGregor and a Palfinger PK1200(M) folding knuckle-boom crane with a lifting capacity of two tonnes and a reach of five metres.

The crew accommodations are on the main deck, with single cabins for the captain and the chief engineer and a pair of two-man cabins for the remainder of the tug's complement of six. The mess, pantry, freezer locker, and a lavatory with two showers are all situated on the lower deck to maintain compliance with MLC 2006 requirements. Finally, with crew safety in the event of emergencies also being a key consideration in the minds of the PSA and RAL designers, onboard space has been allotted for two six-man liferafts from Viking.

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