Turkish yard to build ice-class tugs

Turkish shipbuilder Med Marine, part of the Eregli Shipyard group, has won an order for two ice-class tugs from towage operator Svitzer. Designed by Robert Allan Ltd for operation in Scandinavia, the TundRA 3000 vessels will use azimuth stern drives to generate all-directional force with a bollard pull of up to 60 tonnes.
The new tugs will be significantly more powerful than the two elderly vessels they will replace – the Svitzer Helios and Svitzer Dynan – both of which have bollard pull capabilities below 40 tonnes. Between them, these two vessels have been in operation for a total of 90 years. Commenting on the transaction, Mattias Hellstrøm, Svitzer’s managing director for the Scandinavia and Germany cluster, said: “We are delighted to have closed this deal with Med Marine to build our two new custom-designed TundRA 3000 icebreaking tugs. The new arrivals will allow us to finally retire our last two conventional icebreaking tugs from the Scandinavian fleet, each after more than four decades of service.”
The two tugs, which are 30m long, are due to deliver in the last quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021 and will predominantly work in Danish and Swedish ports. They have also been designed to navigate locks in the Swedish city of Trollhättan, enabling the breaking of ice in River Göta älv and Lake Vänern.