Durban, South Africa-based Sandock Austral Shipyards (SAS) is to offer clients a range of state-of-the-art high-performance tugs, following the signing of an agreement with Vancouver, B.C., naval architect firm Robert Allan Ltd.

The agreement will allow Sandock Austral immediate access to a range of Robert Allan Ltd. designs. It said Robert Allan Ltd. was chosen as a partner due to the firm’s extremely strong global presence with well over 1,000 tugs built to its designs operating worldwide.

“Robert Allan Ltd. has a significant range of vessels available that it has developed and built-in conjunction with other shipyards across the world,” said Charles Maher, head of marketing and sales at Sandock Austral. “Initially, we will be concentrating on their range of azimuthing stern-drive (ASD) tugs, which we will bring to a much wider audience.”

“Robert Allan Ltd. is excited to enter into this new agreement with Sandock Austral Shipyards,” said Jim Hyslop, director of project development at Robert Allan. “We are looking forward to our designs becoming more prevalent in the African market, backed by the proximity, familiarity and quality that SAS offers to its African clients.”

“Sandock Austral Shipyards operates on a global scale with suppliers, service providers and clients.” said Maher. “This significant partnership with such a prestigious naval architect design house, to provide clients with state-of-the-art designs, with quick turnaround times and already in production designs, releases a lot of risk from our company and we can enter tenders with a much higher response rate.”