Ardent and Singapore Salvage Engineers announced on 13th February that they have formally partnered for future operations within Singapore and the adjacent waters. The two companies signed a co-operation agreement on the 19th January 2018 to closely work together on future opportunities and at the same time retain their own corporate identities. Today the group of companies owns and operates more than 50 support vessels. In May 2015, Svitzer Salvage, a part of the Maersk Group, and Titan Salvage, under the Crowley Group, merged to form Ardent. High profile projects for the company have included the Costa Concordia and the Hoegh Osaka.

Iskes Towage & Salvage based in IJmuiden, has taken delivery of two Damen ASD 2810 tugs. The vessels were built at Damen Song Cam Shipyards, Vietnam, and delivered last year to Damen Shipyards Gorinchem in The Netherlands, as part of the group’s strategy to position stock vessels for rapid availability in Europe. This on-demand availability was a significant factor in Damen winning the contract, with both tugs being delivered within two weeks of the contract being signed. Named Phoenix and Lynx, the 293gt/2018 built and 28m tugs are essentially standard versions of this best-selling model. They have a bollard pull of 60 tonnes, a top speed of 13 knots, and excellent manoeuvrability and seakeeping. These acquisitions mean that Iskes now owns and operates a total of nine Damen ASD tugs as part of a fleet of 18 vessels.

Kotug Smit Towage announced at the beginning of March that it had taken the newly-built Damen 299gt/2017 built ATD 2412 Twin Fin tug Buffalo into service for its European harbour towage activities. The vessel is the third tug that Damen has built for Kotug Smit Towage, following on from the Rotterdam and Southampton. The ATD 2412 tug is 25m long with a beam of 13m and, with her 72 tonne bollard pull, she combines compactness with manoeuvrability. She is the fifth ATD 2412 Twin Fin in the Kotug Smit Towage fleet and joins over 20 Damen vessels operated by the company.

The Buffalo has been deployed to Southampton. Kotug Smit Towage was established on 7th April 2016, following the merger of the European harbour towage services of KOTUG (part of Kotug International) and SMIT (subsidiary of Boskalis).

Muller Dordrecht has further strengthened its multipurpose fleet with the latest addition of the 927gt/2011 built ASD tug En Avant 30. The Rotterdam based vessel’s specifications are as impressive as the 110-ton bollard pull, which was built by the Astilleros Armon Vigo Shipyard in Spain in 2011 and is equipped to undertake a range of services including (deep sea) towage, escort, anchor-handling, firefighting (FIFI 2), salvage and harbour assistance. The tug has two Schottel SRP 3030 CPP (controlled pitch) propulsion units and is powered by two MAN 9L 27/38 engines of 3285kW each. The Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation has awarded a construction contract for a new Robert Allan Ltd. TundRA 3600 ice class tug to Gulf Island Fabrication, to be built at their shipyard in Jennings, LA. The tug design is of a relatively shallow draught (4.9m) to be classified by ABS as an Ice Class 1A tug, and incorporates an ice-breaking bow form. She is powered by a pair of EPA Tier 4 compliant engines with SCR after-treatment, to deliver a bollard pull of approximately 65t via controllable pitch Z-drive propulsion units. The vessel is equipped with a heavy duty deck crane, a stern roller, shark jaws, and a tugger winch for ease of handling aids to navigation on the aft working deck.

Tug Malta’s new 431gt/2017 built Damen ASD 2913 tug was named St. Angelo (above) named in the presence of Malta’s Prime Minister on Friday 9th February. Tug Malta is part of the Rimorchiatori Riuniti Group.