WS Sirius, the most powerful harbour and ocean going tugboat in Brazil, with a bollard pull of 90 tons, enters service this week in the Porto of Açu, located in the north of the State of Rio de Janeiro. Its more robust design, new and more efficient propulsion system and also equipped with a render recovery winch, will bring much more safety to manoeuvres in this port.

“This design, with the same specifications as WS Titan, went through some important changes , one being the instalation of a render recovery winch, we can maintain a safe and constant distance together with automated control of the pull on the tow line, reducing the possibility of line breakage during the manoeuvres. The parameters are pre-defined, depending on the operation that will be performed”, explains Marcio Castro, Wilson Sons Rebocadores operational Director.

This escort tug, with a LOA of 32m and a beam of 12m, is the 90th vessel built in the Wilson Sons Shipyards, with a Damen Shipyards project. It took a total of 22 months to build, between the signing of the contract and the actual delivery.

This tug incorporated important changes which allowed for a greater bollard pull, even though the engines and fuel consumption were kept the same as previous tugs. It is also equipped with FiFi 1 fire fighting system and has permission to sail  longer distances and in more adverse sea/weather conditions at over 100 nautical miles from the coast (or 185 kilometers).

“The WS Sirius is our third escort tug and brings our fleet to 76 tugs, consolidating our position as leader in the Brazilian harbour towage market”, says Marcio Castro.