The boats, which will be operated in the Dominican Republic, are Ramparts 2400 SX class tugs, designed by Robert Allan Limited exclusively for Sanmar, and are known as the Bogaçay Class of which 30 have now been purchased by customers worldwide.

The tugs measure 24.4m in length with a moulded beam of 11.25m and an overall draft 5.70m. They are powered by pair of Caterpillar 3516 C main engines, each developping 2100kW at 1600 rev/min driving Rolls-Royce type US 255 FP azimuth drives with carbon shafts turning 2600mm diameter propellers inside high efficiency nozzles with stainless steel inner surfaces. Auxiliary generator sets are also by Caterpillar – a pair of 86ekW C4.4s.

The port side main engine also powers the pump that feeds the external fire-fighting system with a FFS supplied monitor capacity of 1200m3/h located at the forward end of the bridge deck.

This mechinery combination delivers a bollard pull of up to 70 tonnes and drives the hull when free-running at a speed 13 knots. The main winches, manufactured by DMT, is mounted on the vessels’ fore deck.

Each vessel can carry 78m3 of fuel oil and 11.8 tonnes of fresh water, as well as 4.4m3 of foam. The tugs are equipped with CJC off-line filters for fuel oil, main engine oil and thruster gear oil.

Sanmar has delivered two tugboats of the same design to Svitzer Americas and Svitzer Euromed in 2015. Following this, Svitzer ordered six RAstar 2800-E Class ASD tugs from Sanmar Shipyards for the Silver Bullet Project, with first delivery by the end November 2016. In January 2016 Svitzer also ordered two tugs of the RAstar 2800 Class harbour terminal tugs for Inpex-Operated Ichthys’s LNG Project in Darwin, Australia.

Vira Maritime