Dutch towage and salvage provider, Multraship, has held the christening ceremony for two new Novatug CARROUSEL RAVE TUGS (CRTs) at Rotterdam as part of the port’s week long World Harbour Days celebrations. Multraship operates a number of vessels at the giant port.

Multratug 32 was christened by Mrs Muller-Ribbens and Multratug 33 by The Netherlands Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management, the Honourable Cora van Nieuwenhuizen.

The CRTs offer radical improvements in safety and operational efficiency and will help with the optimisation of port usage. The CRTs are able to work with seagoing vessels at much higher speeds than conventional tugs without the risk of capsizing under a tow-load.

The sister vessels were delivered in 2018 by Netherlands shipyard Damen Maaskant. The CRTs are 32 metres long with a maximum static bollard pull of 77 tonnes and are powered by two Voith thruster units and two ABC main engines delivering 2,650 kW at 1000 rpm. Top speed is over 14 knots.

Leendert Muller, managing director of Multraship Towage & Salvage, described the added value of using the CRTs: “These vessels are excellent, safe and more environmentally-friendly for escort and harbour towage work. The design of the CRTs maximises the use of the kinetic energy available in the towed vessel rather than just the tug’s own engine power so the same towing force can be achieved at much lower levels of fuel consumption than with a conventional tug. The savings amount to at least 25 per cent on an average operation involving a seagoing vessel.”

Mr Muller added: “The CRTs fit into our plans to offer a range of services in a number of locations across Europe and beyond. Matching the right assets to the right task is key but we also like to have flexibility so that our tugs can perform well in a range of settings. We expect our offshore vessels also to have capability in harbour and our harbour craft to be effective at sea. It ensures that we can meet our customers’ expectations and play our part in their value chain. We are really proud to see these CRTs formally named today at such a prestigious event.”

Julian Oggel, managing director of Novatug noted: “Commentators often focus on the safety benefits of CTRs and of course those are impressive. But we must also focus on the CRTs’ operational capabilities which meet the needs of ever larger ships in existing ports, where space is often constrained, ensuring quick and efficient operations. The CRTs, combined with today’s IT and Artificial Intelligence possibilities, have fantastic potential to serve as a ‘smart platform’ – gathering, analysing and distributing data – to enable harbour towage to be a central part in the optimisation of the port turnaround of cargo ships. We also offer creative financial ownership models for these tugs including leasing.”

The new CRTs are operating in Rotterdam and on the River Scheldt in the south of the Netherlands.