BOATBUILDING BITTS

company said. The Damen 492'×105' FLOW-SV is specially designed to install ground tackles for offshore turbine oaters.

The vessel can load the immense lengths of chain needed to install and secure nine anchors or suction piles, Damen said. Instead of mooring one oating windmill in a mission, three can be secured.

Secured at all three corners, a oater needs three ground tackles.

“With the FLOW-SV, we have developed a vessel which covers the entire process of attaching mooring lines,” Wijtze van der Leij, Damen’s sales manager, offshore wind, said in a statement. “This vessel, combining the supply, installation, securing and inspection of the ground tackles for oating turbines in one vessel, introduces a big step forward towards large-scale installation of oating windfarms.”

The anchors and chains needed for installing offshore oating wind turbines are so big that a vessel larger than existing anchor handlers is needed. Since the FLOW-SV will be designed to take all the materials and equipment needed to install three oaters, it is also being designed to save time on transits and loading.

When Damen engineers de ned the amounts of gear that the FLOW-SV needs to take onboard to be able to install three oaters in a base case of 328' of water, their calculations added up to ve kilometers (3.1 miles) of 152-mm dia. chain links, 4.5 kilometers (2.8 miles) of 112-mm dia. ber rope, nine anchors each weighing 15 tons, approximately 100 clump weights of 10 tons each, D-shackles, tensioners, as well as steel cable.

Getting the gear to the place of operation means the vessel carries a load of more than 4,000 tons. Depending on seabed conditions, depth and windfarm operator requirements, anchors can be replaced with suction piles to provide a secure ground tackle.

When deploying the anchors at sea, the chain is guided to large winches on the forward end of the large open aft

Metal Shark recently delivered the 47'x12' welded aluminum 45 Defiant crewboat Triumph VII to Anchorage Launch Services Co., Portland, Ore. The company provides launch, line, pilotage, and cargo services to vessels on the Columbia and Willamette rivers. Designed by the Metal Shark engineering team and built at the company’s Jeanerette, La., facility, the new boat has already been placed in service. Main propulsion for Triumph VII comes from twin Cummins QSM11 marine diesels — producing 705 hp each. The mains connect to HamiltonJet HJ-364 waterjets through Twin Disc marine gears. The propulsion package delivers a cruise speed of about 30 knots and a top speed of approximately 40 knots. A 500-gal. fuel capacity allows for a cruise speed range of more than 300 nautical miles.

American Commercial Barge

Line (ACBL), Jeffersonville, Ind., has awarded a contract to Steiner Construction Co., Bayou La Batre, Ala., for the design and construction of an environmentally friendly 82'x34' towboat. After delivery late this year, ACBL’s new towboat will support barge operations in the Houston Ship Channel. With a 10' operational draft, the new towboat will be equipped with twin Mitsubishi diesel engines producing 2,600 hp.

Global investment firm Carlyle and private equity firm Stellex Capital Management has agreed to sell Titan Acquisition Holdings to an affiliate of Lone Star Funds. Titan is made up of Vigor Industrial LLC, a shipbuilding and ship repair company based in Portland, Ore.; MHI Holdings LLC, a ship repair and maintenance company based in Norfolk, Va.; and Continental Maritime, San Diego. Key Titan customers include the Navy, Coast Guard, Military Sealift Command, Boeing, cruise lines, and barge and ferry operators.

Austal USA officially opened the Mobile, Ala., company’s new San Diego waterfront ship repair facility in February. The new facility, located adjacent to Naval Base San Diego, provides full-service repair, maintenance, and modernization services for small surface combatants, unmanned and autonomous vessels, and auxiliary deck, from where it leads over the deck to the stern where it is deployed into the water. A 250-ton crane with a 41' reach and active heave compensation is installed along the aft deck’s starboard side while two smaller cargo rail cranes are available for handling gear on deck. A triple-drum anchor winch can deploy 600 tons pulling force.

One unique feature of the FLOW-

SV is the combination of bollard pull generated by the thrusters and added pulling force from the bow reaction anchor winch, which adds up to 1,000 tons of force. The FLOW-SV deploys the bow anchor and embeds it by reversed bollard pull. The boat then moves to the spot where the anchor for the oater needs to be installed. After letting out enough chain, the anchor for the oater needs to be proof loaded, ensuring a secure seabed connection. Using the four thrusters, the FLOW-SV has 400 tons of bollard pull. Pulling strength is enhanced by the forward anchor handling winch, which generates another 600 tons. At that moment, approximately 1,000 tons of proof-load is acting on the turbine oater anchor.

Two xed propellers in nozzles and two azimuthing thrusters at the stern propel the FLOW-SV and provide forward bollard pull. The propellers in nozzles turn 180° to provide ample reverse bollard pull when the bow anchor is set. The azimuthing thrusters are also engaged for dynamic positioning, together with the retractable azimuthing thruster and tunnel thrusters in the bow section of the vessel.

In line with the purpose of installing

Feeney Shipyard retrofi tting 105’ tug to run on ammonia

Feeney Shipyard, Kingston, N.Y., is retro tting a 105'x27'x15' tug for Amogy Inc., Brooklyn, N.Y. The ammonia-powered, zero-emission vessel is scheduled to be delivered in late 2023.

Ammonia is predicted to become the leading fuel source for the world’s giant cargo ships by 2050, according to the International Energy Agency.

The tug was originally built in 1957 at Brooklyn-based Jakobson Shipyard and uses diesel generators and electric motors, with its ammonia-topower system.

Main propulsion will be the responsibility of a 1-MW version of Amogy’s 600 kW powerpack. The boat will also be out tted with two auxiliary diesel generators.

Amogy’s ammonia-to-power technology feeds liquid ammonia through its cracking modules integrated into a hybrid fuel cell system, which powers the electric motors for zero-carbon shipping, the company said.

Amogy plans to launch the tugboat later this year in upstate New York after further safety testing.

“We’re incredibly proud of unveiling the rst ammonia-powered vessel later this year — especially because of the hope, promise and anticipation that ammonia has built as a zero-emission fuel in the heavy transportation industry — speci cally in regard to maritime shipping,” Seonghoon Woo, Amogy’s CEO, said in a statement.

“This is the rst milestone of many you will see from Amogy in accelerating the accessibility and scalability of clean energy in the global maritime industry.”

Yara Clean Ammonia (YCA), one of the world’s largest ammonia producers and the world’s largest trader and shipper of ammonia, will be providing green ammonia for the demonstration.

Ammonia, which does not emit

CO2 when used as a fuel, is expected to become a next-generation fuel as it contains properties ideally suited for the hydrogen economy, Amogy said. Furthermore, green ammonia produces with zero greenhouse gas emissions from well to wake, Amogy added.

Other partners in the project include Seam, Amogy’s electrical systems integrator, and C-Job Naval Architects.

Amogy is also working with Unique Technical Solutions (UTS) for the electrical and systems work involved in scaling up the powerpack for precommercial use.

To date, Amogy has raised $70 million in funding from strategic investors such as Amazon, Saudi Aramco, SK Innovation, AP Ventures and DCVC

— Ken Hocke

ships. Austal USA has invested over $100 million in facility upgrades and a new fl oating drydock. Also in February, Austal USA delivered the 338'x93'6" expeditionary fast transport vessel Apalachicola (EPF 13) to the Navy. EPF 13 is now the largest surface ship in the Navy fl eet with autonomous capability.

Bollinger Shipyards LLC, Lockport, La., recently delivered the 154'x25'5"x9'6" Maurice Jester to the Coast Guard in Key West, Fla. The cutter is the 178th vessel Bollinger has delivered to the Coast Guard over a 35-year period and the 52nd fast response cutter (FRC) delivered under the current program. FRCs have a fl ank speed of 28 knots, stateof-the-art C4ISR suite (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), and stern launch and recovery ramp for a 26', overthe-horizon interceptor cutter boat. Bollinger is using a design based on the Damen Stan Patrol Boat 4708. Main propulsion comes from twin MTU 20V4000 M93L diesel engines, producing 2,900 hp each.