Crowley Maritime Corp. will christen the new ocean-class tug, the Ocean Sky, in Houston tomorrow.
The 156-ft long Ocean Sky is the fourth of Crowley's new ocean-class tugs to leave the Bollinger shipyard, following its sister ship, the Ocean Sun. Both are equipped with DP2 systems from Kongsberg and 10,880hp, 12-cylinder, C-280-12 marine Cat engines provided by N C Power Systems Co.
Crowley’s fleet has been involved in all of the major offshore oil production installations in the US Gulf of Mexico over the past 16 months. All four of the new tugs worked on the 120,000tonne Olympus TLP tow, and the Jack-St. Malo TLP tow.
The Ocean Sky also works with Crowley's new 455 series high-deck strength, heavy-lift barges, which are 400ft long and 105ft abeam. The tugs are outfitted for long-range, high-capacity ocean towing, rig moves, platform and floating production, storage and offloading unit tows, emergency response, and firefighting.
All four of the ocean-class tugboats have a bollard pull of about 150tonne and a range of approximately 12,600nm at 15 knots free running. They are outfitted with twin-screw, controllable-pitch propellers in nozzles and high-lift rudders for a combination of performance and fuel economy. All of Crowley's North American vessels are classed by ABS.
Crowley Maritime is based in Jacksonville, FL and provided the image at right.
Related OE coverage:
Kings of the Gulf, 23 April 2014 [Olympus tow, July 2013]
Crowley tugs deliver Tubular Bells topside to MC 725, 28 March 2014 [Tubular Bells topside]
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