Two Steel-cutting Ceremonies for Tianjin Port’s New Smart Tugs

September 14, 2018

Following the successful completion in 2015 of concurrent construction programs involving 5 vessels of 3 different designs, Robert Allan Ltd. turned their attention to developing two more designs, working closely with the towing branch of Tianjin Port.

Initiating the construction of these two new vessels, steel cutting ceremonies recently took place at two shipyards who are under contract to deliver two vessels each.

On August 23^rd, the steel-cutting ceremony for the first of two ASD 40/35 pilot/tugboats was held at Jiangsu Zhenjiang Shipyard in China. One week later on August 29, steel-cutting ceremony for the first of two ASD 35/50 tugs took place at Sanlin Shipyard affiliated with Shanghai Harbour Fuxing Shipping Service Company Co., Ltd. Senior management of the towing company attended both ceremonies along with shipyard management.

All of these new tugs are designed to comply with China Classification Society (CCS) requirements for intelligent ship (i-Ship) notation. Under the i-Ship notation the tugs will be equipped with smart-sailing, smart-hull, smart-engine room, smart-efficiency management and smart-control centre systems. When the four tugs are delivered to the owner by the middle of next year, they will be the first tugs with i-Ship notation since CCS launched these rules in March 2016.

For more information on the new ASD 40/35 or ASD 35/50 tugs or any other high- performance vessel designs developed by Robert Allan Ltd., please contact design@ral.ca.

ASD 35/50

ASD 40/35