4 minute read
The Coast Guard’s newest rapid response vessel
Delivering rapid response capabilities
By Lawren Best, Director of Design Development, Robert Allan Ltd.
The Cadboro Bay, featured on the cover of this issue, is one of two recently delivered search and rescue vessels for the Canadian Coast Guard, bringing the number to four Bay Class boats now operating on the B.C. coast. These fully self-righting, extreme weather lifeboats provide much needed additional rapid response capabilities. While not viewed in the same vein as traditional tugs that safely escort tankers against groundings or collision, these boats and the crews onboard them provide with their emergency towing capabilities the ability to react quickly to smaller vessels in distress and not only save lives, but also vessels to avoid potential subsequent pollution of the environment. As a parallel to the addition of Cadboro Bay itself, everyone is looking for ways to reduce environmental impact while also increasing safety on the B.C. coast. The only fact we truly know today is that it will take contributions, big and small, from everyone involved including governments, companies, and individuals.
We at Robert Allan Ltd. believe that the next five years have the potential to be a transformative time and the start of a surge where nations and shippers are renewing and increasing their pledges to further reduce emissions. Governments, ports, operators and shipping have the ability to fully embrace decarbonization now where the
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critical high-power operations of tugs in our ports actually translates into an opportunity, in one vessel, to remove the equivalent emission of thousands of fossil fuelled cars from our roads.
In a large and crucial step, construction has now formally begun on five new innovate tugs for HaiSea Marine (a joint venture of Haisla First Nation and Seaspan Marine) to serve the LNG Canada export terminal under construction in Kitimat. This project provided what was at the time a unique opportunity to truly select the best technology to reduce the environmental impact to suit the operations. The LNG dual fuel approach fit the long-distance escort tug operations in Douglas Channel as it offered reduced carbon emissions while also providing fuel redundancy in an emergency. The complimentary job of berthing and unberthing of LNG carriers in Kitimat truly provides an opportunity to capitalize on the short distance between the tugs’ berth and the terminal and, for the first time in the Americas, utilize tugs that will operate almost exclusively on batteries, importantly charged from B.C.’s already green electric grid. These new ElectRA series tugs have diesel power for emergency situations and are truly an ideal case of the industry recognizing an opportunity to lead though innovation which is now being applied to other ports. The rapidly growing momentum first begun by the design of these world leading tugs has now led to the expansion of ElectRA series of battery electric tugs with options available for customized to a wide range of ports and operating profiles. Future operations will benefit from the reduced underwater noise and improved responsiveness which are inherent features in this series of tug designs and meet the core requirements of reduced emissions and improved safety.
Our expectation is that to obtain deep reductions in emissions, a customized approach will be needed as it was for HaiSea Marine, where the individual operation needs to be evaluated to select the most appropriate technology that still meets operational requirements. We currently have active paid development projects also underway for Methanol, Ammonia, and Fuel Cell powered tugs and are keen to see how these develop to the standing of battery electric tugs so we can provide clients the best possible energy carrier options for a rapidly approaching and exciting future. Ü
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