When you operate Navy ships, relying on commercial tugs that may not be available when needed isn’t your preferred operational plan. The Canadian Navy has their own small fleet of five yard tugs Glen class large tugs (45-47 years old), five smaller harbour tugs (the Ville Class) and two Robert Allan Ltd. designed Fire Class fire boats, all similarly aged. The 28m Glen class are very low powered by modern ship-docking tug standards at 19 tons of bollard pull; the smaller Ville class are even lower at only 7.5 tons.
The Canadian Navy wanted to replace these aging vessels with new 60 tonne bollard pull tugs capable of handling its newest and largest vessels (the new 174m Joint Support Ships). In 2019, it awarded the contract to construct four new vessels to Ocean Industries Inc. of Quebec with Robert Allan Ltd. their design partner in this effort. Replacing seven older vessels with four new ones with smaller crew numbers should be a significant benefit to the Navy. The Navy will keep their five small Ville class yard tugs (also designed by Robert Allan Ltd. in 1971) for now.
The builder had to offer a “proven design” that was already in service, with Navy representatives guaranteed access to inspect this vessel as part of the contract. In July 2019, representatives of the Navy, Ocean Industries, and Robert Allan flew to Turkey to view one of the very popular RAmparts 2400SX built by the Sanmar shipyard – the 39th in the series.
The unique contract allowed the Navy to amend their vessel specification to include items found on the proven design vessel that they had not included – such as the washer and dryer they quickly noticed. The inspection also included some sea time on the vessel, where various operations were demonstrated. Once the revised specifications were discussed and agreed to, Robert Allan’s design work was finished in early 2020, including an ABS design review.
Naturally for a naval vessel, a large amount of design review took place before the additional detailed engineering of working drawings could even start. As this was the first RAmparts 2400SX to be built in Canada, it also had to be modified to suit numerous Canadian ship and tug specific regulations. Of course, there was also the Navy specific requirements such as grey fendering to avoid black marks on Navy hulls and extra soft bow fendering to avoid damaging the thin plating of modern warships. These new tugs are fitted with a THR bow winch for ship handling and docking. For open ocean towing over the stern an aft deck THR towing winch and Western Machine Works tow pins/stern roller were added. A new bow tank added an additional 10 tonnes of potable water to deliver to other vessels in the harbours. The Fi-Fi 1 fire pumping capacity of each of the tugs will be more than double of the old Fire class vessels.
The smaller 24m size and lower profile deckhouse and wheelhouse will allow these tugs to better work under the flared bow of Navy vessels and in the confined dock areas in both naval bases. Powered by twin MAN 12V175D-MN engines (1860 kW at 1800 RPM) and Schottel SRP 430 Z-drives with 2400mm fixed pitch propellers, these new tugs will be in service for many decades just like their predecessors. Outfitted for a crew of three for day operations and up to six for coastal towing operation, they also require fewer crew than their predecessors.
The first two of these tugs will be delivered in 2022 and stationed in Esquimalt. The second pair of vessels will be located in Halifax with deliveries scheduled for 2023 and 2024.
