Cleve­land, Ohio. The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny proud­ly announces the first har­bor assist for its tug CLEVELAND; the first tug­boat to be built in the Unit­ed States to meet the new USCG Sub­chap­ter M Reg­u­la­tions. On Mon­day, July 17, 2017, the tug CLEVELAND assist­ed the M/V FEDERAL SAGUENAY for Mon­tre­al-based Fed­nav, Canada’s largest ocean-going dry-bulk ship­ping com­pa­ny. The ves­sel arrived at the Cleve­land Main Entrance at 0600 hours, where the new har­bor tug began the assis­tance, turn­ing the bulk car­ri­er with fleet­mate Tug ILLINOIS for a stern first place­ment at the Port of Cleve­land Dock 26. The M/V FEDERAL SAGUENAY orig­i­nat­ed from Ebsjerg, Den­mark and made a stop in Cleve­land while en route to Mil­wau­kee, Wisconsin.

Tug CLEVELAND’s crew includ­ed Capt. Brad Shep­pard and Deck­hand Tim McKen­na and Tug ILLINOIS includ­ed Capt. Scott Bak­er, Crew­men Bran­den Faden­holz and Aaron Burnett.

Historic Launch: “The Workhorse of the Great Lakes”

The Great Lakes Tow­ing Company’s Ship­yard, known as Great Lakes Ship­yard, proud­ly launched the tug CLEVELAND at The Company’s head­quar­ters on May 25, 2017 and the Ship­yard deliv­ered the tug­boat to The Tow­ing Com­pa­ny on June 30, 2017. Present on the port­side and star­board side of Tug CLEVELAND is a white “Work­horse” logo, pay­ing homage to The Great Lakes Tow­ing Company’s tugs from the ear­ly 1900s, which were known as the “Work­hors­es of the Great Lakes.”

“This icon­ic sym­bol is a nod to The Company’s rich his­to­ry and tra­di­tion of pow­er, sal­vage, speed and stead­fast­ness. The har­bor assist for our good friends at Fed­nav is a per­fect start for the new tug, and we look for­ward to reg­u­lar­ly oper­at­ing her for ser­vice to all our cus­tomers, as she becomes the work­horse in the Port of Cleveland.

Spirit of Innovation

This was the first of ten (10) Damen Stan Tugs 1907 ICE planned to be built for The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny by Great Lakes Ship­yard, and marks the begin­ning of a new con­struc­tion pro­gram to intro­duce two (2) new har­bor tugs per year for the next five (5) years at the Shipyard’s facil­i­ty in Cleve­land, Ohio.

The new tugs will enhance the Company’s fleet and help to sus­tain the qual­i­ty of its ser­vices at the high­est lev­el of safe­ty. As each new tug is intro­duced into the fleet, two (2) exist­ing tugs will be retired from ser­vice. These ten (10) new tugs will sta­bi­lize oper­a­tions, reduce emis­sions, and improve day-to-day busi­ness. The new tugs, with the mod­ern equip­ment and auto­mat­ed machin­ery onboard, will be ide­al for the long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the Company’s har­bor tow­ing activ­i­ties – pro­vid­ing cus­tomers with an even greater lev­el of reli­a­bil­i­ty, per­for­mance, and safe­ty, across the entire Great Lakes ser­vice network.

This new con­struc­tion pro­gram is evi­dence of The Tow­ing Company’s inno­v­a­tive spir­it and reflects its com­mit­ment to its cus­tomers and the entire Great Lakes/St. Lawrence Sea­way marine trans­porta­tion indus­try. “We con­tin­u­ous­ly strive to improve the qual­i­ty and safe­ty of our prod­ucts and ser­vices, and how well they are deliv­ered to our cus­tomers. As lead­ers in the indus­try, we believe we have an oblig­a­tion to make sure our cus­tomers receive the best ser­vice pos­si­ble,” says Joe Star­ck, Pres­i­dent of the Tow­ing Company.

The launch­ing cer­e­mo­ny was attend­ed by the fol­low­ing partners:

• Unit­ed States Coast Guard
• Amer­i­can Bureau of Shipping
• Damen Ship­yards
• Fifth Third Bank
• Great Lakes Shipyard
• The Great Lakes Tow­ing Company

Tugboat Specifications

Tug CLEVELAND is the first Damen tug to be built under license in the U.S. The Tow­ing Com­pa­ny select­ed the Stan Tug 1907 ICE design based on Damen’s rep­u­ta­tion for qual­i­ty and fact-find­ing vis­its made by the man­age­ment of Great Lakes Tow­ing to Damen in the Nether­lands. In addi­tion to the stout scant­lings nec­es­sary for oper­a­tions in ice, the tugs spec­i­fi­ca­tions include:

• Length: 63’05”
• Beam: 24’02”
• Depth (Amid­ships): 11’01”
• Design Draft: 10’00”
• Dis­place­ment: 165 long tons (Oper­a­tional Lightship)
• Ton­nage: Less than 100 GRT
• Main Engines: Two (2) x MTU 8V4000 M54R (1,000 HP each @ 1600 RPM)
• Pro­pellers: Twin Screw — Three Blad­ed, 71” Diam­e­ter, Kaplan Style in Kort Nozzles
• Reduc­tion Gears: Twin Disc MG5321 Quick Shift, Ratio: 5.45:1