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Displaying items by tag: SMS Towage Ltd

#NewTUGS - The tug Masterman was named at a ceremony in Belfast Port last week, the event marks the second tug for SMS Towage Ltd which launched a new towage service in early October, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The entry of SMS Towage to Belfast Port represents an investment in excess of £5m and is a response to the demand from port users.

The 50 bollard tonnes Masterman built in 2009 joins another omnidirectional tug Irishman completed in 1989 which has a bollard pull capacity of 40 tonnes. The pair are highly-manoeuvrable 24m tug boats capable of handling a full range of vessels.

They will be manned 24 hours a day and provide a 'just in time' service for the convenience of customers. The tugs first job was to assist the 43,000 gross tonnes bulk-carrier Billion Trader II.

SMS Towage's managing director Patrick Lyon said that the company had been set up to meet a clear demand for its services.
"We see Belfast as a strategic location. It is a vibrant port that will be home to a purpose built cruise terminal, a new offshore wind terminal and had a record year in 2012. We believe there is great potential for growth in the new business that will result in local employment."

The independent Northern Irish company will trade under the brand of SMS Towage, which operates on the River Humber and South Wales ports. Mr Lyon said that the company had grown quickly over the last 10 years to become the UK's largest independent harbour towage company.

 

Published in Belfast Lough

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.