Just Pulled In: Coal Harbor Marina - Part II

Graphic demo...

I saw the televised documentary on Troll A, awesome engineering spectacle.

Out and about in False Creek...

Yaletown is her home port...

Here’s a good read about Vancouver Tugs from the Maritime Journal…
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Vancouver – It’s a Different World
01 Jul 2007
As tugs and towing correspondent for Maritime Journal I recently took the opportunity to visit the towage industry in Vancouver and the nearby Fraser River.

1. Cates 3 was built to a Robert Allan design that has proved highly effective in Vancouver.
It was a personal quest, to see why Vancouver based designers have had such a profound influence on the towage industry worldwide and to experience the local towage scene at close quarters.
With a few notable exceptions, Vancouver has led the world in the field of small, efficient shiphandling tugs, intended for operation with small crews. Tugs such as the ‘Seaspan Falcon’, vessels in the Cates fleet and ‘Tiger Sun’ have become well known examples of that trend.
Over an eight day period, with visits to several companies and time spent aboard several tugs of different types it became clear that the approach to towage in Vancouver and probably British Columbia in general is in a world of its own when compared with Europe and elsewhere. With the exception of the deep sea and coastal trades, harbour and river towage has historically moved towards smaller more powerful vessels operated by very few people.
Vancouver is a large, well protected, almost landlocked natural harbour frequented by a wide variety of ships ranging from large bulk carriers, container ships and tankers to cruise liners and an almost endless stream of tugs and barges. The latter includes coastal and deep sea traffic in the locally named ’line haul’ trade between Canada, the west coast of the United States and north to Alaska.
A few hours aboard the tug ‘Charles H Cates III’ (abbreviated to ‘Cates 3’ in operation) in Vancouver harbour provided a rapid and interesting introduction to the operational environment. One of a series of four similar ASD tugs in the ten strong Cates fleet, Cates 3 works from a smart base in North Vancouver with ‘marina style’ moorings and its own ‘synchrolift’. The fleet, along with Seaspan, are part of the Washington Group of companies and organisation operating a vast fleet of tugs and barges of all types.
Cates 3 is one of a series of vessels designed by Robert Allan Ltd and completed in 1990. A tug of 22.44m in length with a breadth of 8.53m, the 2,350 bhp vessel has Niigata engines and propulsion units and a bollard pull of approximately 34 tons. The tug is very well fendered, tows from a single drum winch on the foredeck, and operates with a crew of two.
In a working day Cates 3 can be found shiphandling, usually as one of a pair, anywhere in the port area. The tug is operated as a ‘day boat’ with a small mess room for the crew. A centrally placed wheelhouse gives exceptional all round visibility and all of the propulsion, winch and other controls fall neatly to hand. When built, Cates 3 was fitted with a line handling crane on the foredeck but with improved modern towlines it was found unnecessary and removed.
Two man manning in the area is deemed acceptable due to the method of operation, with tugs working in pairs, the close proximity to a home base and other facilities, and the relatively sheltered local environment. Crews work 12 hour shifts, seven days a week, with one week off in two.
The Cates tugs work alongside the ASD tugs ‘Seaspan Falcon’ and ‘Seaspan Hawk’, introduced in 1992.They were developed by Seaspan in conjunction with Robert Allan Ltd following considerable experience with an earlier and larger vessel ‘Seaspan Discovery’. Both tugs were built side by side on a slip at Vancouver Shipyard in only five months. The result was a pair of exceptionally successful shiphandling vessels of 25.9m in length, with a beam of 9.1m, powered by two Detroit Diesels delivering a total of 3,200 bhp. Two Niigata Z-Peller units are fitted, giving the tugs a bollard pull of 40 tons ahead and 38 tons astern. The wheelhouse is designed for one man operation and the tugs work with a total complement of two.
In addition to Cates and Seaspan, shiphandling services are also provided by Smit Harbour Towage Vancouver Inc. The Vancouver fleet was taken over by Smit from Rivtow
Marine in the year 2000, along with similar services at New Westminster and an extensive tug and barge fleet serving the timber trades. Smit’s six tug local shiphandling fleet is headed by the powerful 21.70m long, 10.7m beam, ASD tug ‘Tiger Sun’. Powered by Detroit Diesels generating a total of 5,400 bhp, the vessel has a bollard pull of 70 tons and is exceptionally agile. When this tug, built to a design by local naval architect A G McIlwain, was first introduced in 1999 it caused a stir not just locally but around the world and a considerable and sustained interest in so called ‘compact’ tugs. Again the vessel is operated by a crew of two and has only day boat facilities. A small number of tugs based on the same design have been built for use in Australia and New Zealand. Tiger Sun operates alongside the 15.85m, 3,000 bhp ASD tug ‘Tiger Spirit’ and two 15.24m twin screw vessels of 1,800 bhp.
Another resident of Vancouver is Island Tug & Barge Ltd, a company operating a fleet of 9 tugs and approximately 16 barges locally and in the Puget Sound, Alaska and Pacific Northwest regions. The company specialise in the transportation oil and other bulk cargoes, in addition to general towage, cable laying and equipment delivery. Tugs in the fleet range from the 41m, 3,000 bhp ‘Island Monarch’ down in size to the 16.4m, 450 bhp ‘Island Chief’. All are fully equipped for coastal or deepsea operation.
During a visit to Island Tug & Barge, the latest addition to their fleet, ‘Island Scout’, was in port and made available for inspection as part of a tour of the company’s plant. Island Scout was completed in the company’s own facilities in 2006 using a hull and structural steelwork fabricated at the Jinling shipyard in China. The twin screw seagoing tug is equipped to tow or push bunker barges delivering fuel to many outlying areas in British Columbia and Alaska. A vessel of only 23.92m length, with a beam of 7.54m and draft of 3.4m, the tug is extraordinarily well equipped and designed to be self sufficient during lengthy tows. Two Cummins KTA 38 main engines, which have a dual rating of 1,050/1,700 bhp, are coupled to a pair of fixed pitch propellers rotating within fixed Kort nozzles. This arrangement gives the tug a bollard pull of 16/25 tons and a maximum free running speed of 11 knots.
Island Scout is remarkably quiet while underway due to flexibly mounted engines and couplings and good sound insulation. In common with almost every Canadian tug of any size, a towing winch is fitted aft and in this case the towing gear includes hydraulically operated tow pins and sheaves to enable a split towing bridle to be rigged for pushing on the bow. A small winch on the foredeck is used to assist in controlling the tug and barge whilst the push-tow is being rigged.
While in Vancouver an invitation to visit the naval architect and design consultant Robert Allan served to confirm just how extensive and wide ranging the activities of his thriving company Robert Allan Ltd really are. At the time, the company had just completed a further expansion of their premises, taking over a third floor in the same office block to house its present staff of some 56 people.
It was Robert Allan who coined the phase ‘a feeding frenzy for new tugs’. He was of course describing the massive demand for new tonnage currently being experienced by the towage industry, a situation set to continue for sometime. And who better to describe the present situation, where even a loose estimate indicates a total of some 600 tugs currently under construction around the world. His company is currently responsible for supplying the designs and considerable expertise that will make a high proportion of those vessels possible, a figure approaching 200 at the last count.
The present company represents the culmination of three generations of ship design expertise. Robert Allan followed his father and grandfather into the design business and the company Robert Allan Ltd (RAL) was eventually incorporated in 1962. Since that date the company has developed dramatically into arguably the foremost design and consultancy business in the world.

I don't know, didn't write the article.

Sailing School from Seattle...
- Glory (above)
- Neptune's Car
- Icon
- looks like a live-aboard

- The new Beneteau 42 Trawler
- New Sunseaker

2 others

Your right, the 20+ Trawler design packs a lot of space and is adequate for our sheltered waters, my 1st boat was a 20+ cabin cruiser that was perfect for Island hopping 3-4 days at a time.
That Beneteau Swift 42 is a nice boat, I've been on it, it's well though out and very economical to run.
I believe it had twin Volvo screws, and only about +/- $240K.
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The Tug conversion is "Nimpkish II"

Maybe that sounds a bit low, probably more like $540K.
I would make a lousy broker.