AWARDS 2023 | Best Medium Harbour Tug – Pate – Robert Allan Ltd

Best Medium Harbour Tug – Pate – Robert Allan Ltd

This large and powerful multi-purpose Robert Allan Ltd-designed tug was built for the major Kenyan port of Lamu. At 30 metres LOA and 84 tonnes bollard pull, the tug is fully capable to undertake harbour, escort and coastal towage as well as fire-fighting and salvage if required.

She’s a magnificent vessel and a very necessary and valuable addition to the offerings of an important new East African port.

"The design of the hull and the resulting performance make the tug special," Todd Barber, RAL Project Director, told Baird Maritime. "With a length of 30 metres and an impressive bollard pull of 84 tonnes, it stands out for its high power in a compact and efficiently laid out design. The vessel can achieve nearly identical ahead and astern free running speeds of over 13 knots and is easily controllable with no vibration when navigating in either direction."

Barber remarked that the astern bollard pull is also nearly the same as ahead bollard pull as calculated in CFD and verified on trials. Med Marine meticulously tailored the tug in order to meet the customer's requirements.

The tug was designed with a low profile for operation under the flare of assisted ships. In order to achieve the low profile design, the deckhouse was kept low and partially inset into the forward deck, resulting in some challenges laying out the lower accommodations and machinery spaces.

"During the design, significant time and attention were invested to ensure optimal visibility from the operator’s position," said Barber. "The result is excellent 360-degree visibility."

"In 2024 we expect to see a continually increasing focus on decarbonisation, but also still a need for reliable high-performance diesel-fuelled tugs for regions where decarbonisation is not yet possible," added Lawren Best, RAL's Director of Design Development. "To meet decarbonisation goals, a large number of battery electric tugs are under design and construction, implementing the latest in battery technology, but our expectation is that we’ll see a combination of paths to meet decarbonisation requirements."

In Best's view, these combinations will include battery tugs, tugs operating on bio/renewable diesel replacements, and both future-fuelled and future fuel-ready vessels. Design work was completed last year on he said are the world’s first newbuild methanol-powered escort and rescue tugs, which are now under construction and scheduled for delivery in 2025.

"The mentioned decarbonisation and focus on environmental impact is an important step change for the industry, which is impacting design and operational decisions," said Best. "This brings with it the need to create operational efficiencies within tug fleets, and the significant data capturing and analysis efforts underway will assist in supporting future innovations. The mariners on board should always be considered, as they are the key in the adoption of new technologies while upholding the culture of continuous safety improvement."

RAL enjoyed a productive year in 2023, with 88 vessels delivered. One was a dive support vessel while the remaining 87 were tugs. The vessels were built in 15 different shipyards across nine countries and had a total combined bollard pull of over 6,000 tonnes with almost 400 MW of installed power, and a small but significant portion of that total installed power is coming from batteries.

"The biggest highlight of 2023 was the successful delivery of five battery electric tugs built for HaiSea Marine and SAAM to enable zero-emissions operations," Best told Baird Maritime. "Another was already delivered this year to Norway."

Best added that RAL is now carbon-neutral, and the move to a new upgraded office has resulted in numerous improvements for the staff. This allows the company to continue to focus on designing innovative vessels to fulfil future needs.

Best said that decarbonisation will be a focus of the North American workboat industry, as is the case with workboat industries in other countries. The North American market has regions with varying short-term priorities and infrastructure, and so there is a need to be involved with operators deploying differing strategies but also many parallels.

"Canada has placed a cost on carbon, making the cost of diesel quite high," said Best, "but we are fortunate to have access to cost-efficient green electrical power on the west coast. Operators are leveraging this to implement zero-emission battery electric tugs to handle increased shipping at both new and expanding terminals."

Best remarked that, due to the high costs of building Jones Act-eligible tugs, most of the US market’s focus is on implementing high bollard pull diesel tugs to similarly serve large new terminals and ships increasing in size and frequency of visits. There is also an increased focus on escort safety. Where possible, operators are accessing government grant funding to explore the viability of tugs with reduced emissions, as this approach can make projects economically feasible.

"We are increasing our simulation and design capabilities to support the industry’s decarbonisation efforts and to further optimise, de-risk, and innovate," said Best. "This is because tugs are increasingly handling larger and larger ships at higher speeds in the tight confines of harbours and constrained channels."

RAL is continuing to develop and deploy new tools to assist in this process such as refining CFD escort prediction methods to be easily understood by crews and pilots, developing and calibrating underwater radiated noise predictions and winch analysis software, and implementing upstream emissions into the company's propulsion configuration evaluation tools.

"We will continue to support all our clients with these new tools and our proven expertise to continue designing tugs capable of safely escorting ships and enabling them to achieve this in decarbonised manner when possible," Best told Baird Maritime.

For a list of the 2023 "Best Of" award winners, please click here.