Sanmar has delivered its first Tier lll tugboat to Buksér og Berging AS, the first of two environmentally-friendly tugs ordered by the Norwegian operator.

Built at Sanmar’s purpose-built state of the art shipyard at Altinova in Turkey, the powerful, yet low emission tugboat has been named Bamse by its new owners.

Based on the TRAktor 3000-Z design from Canadian naval architects Robert Allan Ltd, the 30.45m LOA Bamse has a moulded beam of 12.8m and navigational draft of 6.35m. It was delivered at the end of May and will carry out escort duties from Brevik, in Norway. It is powered by two 2,200kW high speed engines driving CP propellers in an IMO Tier III emissions compliant installation.

The state-of-the-art and technologically-advanced design was developed by Robert Allan Ltd, Buksér og Berging and Sanmar Shipyards working closely together throughout every stage of the project.

The design features a new hull form and accordingly significant design verification was performed using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Analyses included verification of ahead speed, astern speed, bollard pull, escort performance, and directional stability in order to help ensure the vessel will perform to the owner’s requirements. The result is a vessel that perfectly matches the owner’s performance, stability and seakeeping expectations.

Bamse is the 6th tug delivered to Buksér og Berging by the busy Turkish builder and operator. In 2014 and 2015 Sanmar delivered five new-build tugs to the Norwegian operator, including Borgoy and Bokn, the world’s first two purely LNG-fuelled tugboats.

It was Sanmar’s ability to offer ultra-modern, technologically-advanced and eco-friendly tugboats based on radical new CFD-tested designs, that led Buksér og Berging to once again choose the Turkish shipyard for its latest fleet upgrade.

Bamse has an impressive bollard pull of 75 tonnes and is capable of generating a steering force in excess of 80 tonnes. It can achieve a speed ahead of 13 knots and has a fuel oil capacity of 126m³.

As the tug will operate skeg/stern first for the vast majority of time, visibility over the stern has been optimized and the stern of the hull is ice strengthened for operations in light ice conditions. Accommodation is designed for a crew of up to seven with Master and Chief Engineer cabins located on the main deck and a single and two double crew cabins below.

Ali Gurun, Vice President of Sanmar, said: “The TRAktor 3000-Z tugs prove that minimising environmental impact does not have to come at the price of reducing power or performance. Here at Sanmar we are proud to be at the forefront of the drive to develop increasingly environmentally-friendly tugboats through technological advance and innovation.”