Great Lakes Ship­yard, Cleve­land, Ohio, has been con­tract­ed by New York Pow­er Author­i­ty (NYPA) to build and deliv­er two (2) new tug­boats for the Nia­gara Pow­er Plant’s win­ter oper­a­tions in Buf­fa­lo, NY. The new tugs will aug­ment and replace aging ves­sels that are used for the instal­la­tion, removal, and main­te­nance of the Lake Erie-Nia­gara Riv­er Ice Boom and var­i­ous asso­ci­at­ed marine con­struc­tion projects.

Com­put­er ren­der­ing of one of two tug­boats recent­ly ordered by the New York Pow­er Author­i­ty (NYPA) to replace two aging vessels—the Daniel Jon­caire and the Breaker—that sup­port the win­ter oper­a­tions of NYPA’s Nia­gara Hydro­elec­tric Pow­er Plant and the Sir Adam Beck Pumped Gen­er­at­ing Sta­tion, owned by Ontario Pow­er Gen­er­a­tion. (Cred­it: NYPA)

The new tugs will be spe­cial­ly rein­forced with heavy stems and shell rein­force­ment for oper­a­tions in sea­son­al ice. The design of the con­ven­tion­al dri­ve tugs includes ele­vat­ed pilot­hous­es for improved vis­i­bil­i­ty when maneu­ver­ing, as well as a spa­cious work deck aft to facil­i­tate ice boom con­nec­tions. The tugs are designed to com­ply with pro­posed Sub­chap­ter M of Title 46 of the Code of Fed­er­al Reg­u­la­tions for inspect­ed tow­ing vessels.

Deliv­ery of the first tug is sched­uled for Sep­tem­ber 2015.

The tug con­struc­tion con­tract, val­ued at near­ly $5 mil­lion, is the company’s sec­ond major order from the Pow­er Author­i­ty. In 2010, Great Lakes Ship­yard built the agency’s new 80’ x 34’ Ice Boom Oper­a­tions Barge, includ­ing the sup­ply and instal­la­tion of a new Terex 80-ton pedestal mount­ed lat­tice boom crane.

Like the barge, the naval archi­tec­ture and marine engi­neer­ing firm of Bris­tol Har­bor Group, Inc., Bris­tol, RI, (BHGI) was con­tract­ed by NYPA to devel­op the con­tract design doc­u­ments for the ves­sels and pro­vide con­sul­ta­tion dur­ing both the bid and con­struc­tion phas­es. BHGI assist­ed NYPA dur­ing the bid process, and will be act­ing as NYPA’s on-site rep­re­sen­ta­tive dur­ing the fab­ri­ca­tion process, per­form­ing qual­i­ty assur­ance and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion functions.

NYPA is the nation’s largest state pow­er orga­ni­za­tion, oper­at­ing 16 pow­er gen­er­a­tion plants in var­i­ous loca­tions in New York State. Among those facil­i­ties are the Nia­gara Pow­er Project’s Robert Moses Nia­gara Pow­er Plant and the Lewis­ton Pump-Gen­er­at­ing Plant. These plants uti­lize water divert­ed from the upper Nia­gara Riv­er to pro­duce elec­tri­cal pow­er for NYPA cus­tomers. In a joint effort with the Ontario Pow­er Gen­er­a­tion util­i­ty, NYPA is respon­si­ble for instal­la­tion and removal of an 8,800-foot-long float­ing ice boom designed to accel­er­ate the for­ma­tion of the nat­ur­al ice arch that forms most win­ters near the head of the Nia­gara Riv­er and also sta­bi­lize the arch once it has formed. The ice boom reduces the sever­i­ty and dura­tion of ice runs into the Nia­gara Riv­er, there­by less­en­ing the prob­a­bil­i­ty of large scale ice block­ing in the riv­er and ensur­ing con­tin­ued hydropow­er gen­er­a­tion. In addi­tion, it reduces the prob­a­bil­i­ty of ice dam­age to docks and oth­er shore structures.

To learn more about The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny and its Ship­yard, vis­it their web­site at: www.thegreatlakesgroup.com or con­tact: Joe Star­ck, 216–367-8126.