The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny Achieves Sig­nif­i­cant Mile­stone with Keel Lay­ing Cer­e­mo­ny of Ten (10) Damen Stan Tugs 1907 ICE to Enhance its Great Lakes Fleet

Cleve­land, Ohio. Great Lakes Ship­yard laid keels for the first of ten (10) Damen Stan Tugs 1907 ICE to be built for The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny on Wednes­day, August 10, 2016. This mile­stone 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.

Built to ABS Class, GLS Hull Num­bers 6501–6510 will be the first tugs built to meet the new USCG Sub­chap­ter M Reg­u­la­tions. The 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

“This new con­struc­tion pro­gram is fur­ther evi­dence of the inno­v­a­tive spir­it the Tow­ing Com­pa­ny has always embraced since its found­ing over 117 years ago, and reflects the com­mit­ment we have to our 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.

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

Damen

Great Lakes Ship­yard to Build First Damen Tugs Under License in U.S.

The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny & Great Lakes Ship­yard entered into a part­ner­ship with B.V. Scheep­swerf Damen Gor­inchem (Damen) at the 2015 New Orleans Work­boat Show in which Damen will pro­vide engi­neer­ing for its proven designs and Great Lakes Ship­yard will receive full con­struc­tion, design and engi­neer­ing sup­port from Damen.

The Stan Tug 1907 ICE for The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny will be the First Damen Tugs to be Built Under License in the U.S. The Tow­ing Com­pa­ny select­ed this 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 that demon­strat­ed that the Mod­el 1907 design exact­ly matched the client’s needs. In addi­tion to the stout scant­lings nec­es­sary for oper­a­tions in ice, the tugs spec­i­fi­ca­tions include:

• Length (LOA): 65’ 00”
• Breadth: 24’ 00”
• Depth: 11’ 00”
• Draft: 9’ 06”
• Gross Ton­nage: Less than 100 GRT
• Main Engines: Two (2) x MTU 8V4000 M54R (1,000 HP each @ 1600 RPM)
• Pro­pellers: Twin Screw — Four Blad­ed, 71” Diam­e­ter, Kaplan Style in Kort Nozzles
• Reduc­tion Gears: Twin Disc MG5321 Quick Shift, Ratio: 5.45:1

 While these are the first tugs to be built in the USA under Damen’s Tech­ni­cal Coop­er­a­tion pro­gram, many Stan Tug 1907 ICE tugs can be found oper­at­ing around the world.

“We are pleased to con­tin­ue our rela­tion­ship with Damen. Our part­ner­ship with Damen, as an autho­rized builder of Damen designs, was a strate­gic move to pro­vide our cus­tomers with the wide prod­uct range and inter­na­tion­al expe­ri­ence of Damen’s design port­fo­lio, com­bined with qual­i­ty Amer­i­can crafts­man­ship and tug­boat expe­ri­ence from Great Lakes Ship­yard. The Damen license agree­ment expand­ed upon our exist­ing prod­uct offer­ings, which already includ­ed designs, such as the Handy-size Class tugs, devel­oped under our long­stand­ing part­ner­ship with naval archi­tects, Jensen Mar­itime Con­sul­tants of Seat­tle, WA.  As The Tow­ing Com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to grow, build new tugs and over­haul the tugs in its exist­ing fleet, the Ship­yard will also con­tin­ue to expand and grow,” says Star­ck. 

United States Coast Guard

Great Lakes Ship­yard to Build First Tugs in Com­pli­ance with USCG Sub­chap­ter M Reg­u­la­tions in U.S.

On June 20, 2016, the U.S. Coast Guard announced new tow­ing ves­sel reg­u­la­tions estab­lish­ing new require­ments for the design, con­struc­tion, onboard equip­ment and oper­a­tion of U.S.-flagged tow­ing ves­sels. These reg­u­la­tions, which were devel­oped over time with input from the Tow­ing Safe­ty Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee (TSAC) and the tow­ing ves­sel indus­try, were incor­po­rat­ed into Title 46 of the Code of Fed­er­al Reg­u­la­tions as the new Sub­chap­ter M. By con­struct­ing to ABS require­ments and uti­liz­ing the clas­si­fi­ca­tion soci­ety for audit­ing to the Inter­na­tion­al Safe­ty Man­age­ment (ISM) Code, the new ves­sels are demon­strat­ing com­pli­ance to Sub­chap­ter M. Under the reg­u­la­tion ABS is ful­ly autho­rized as a third-par­ty orga­ni­za­tion to work on behalf of the US Coast Guard. Addi­tion­al­ly, ABS has been autho­rized to con­duct audit­ing under the Amer­i­cans Water­ways Orga­ni­za­tion Respon­si­ble Car­ri­er Program.

Pic­tured: CWO Robie Moor­house, Marine Inspec­tor, USCG Marine Safe­ty Unit Cleve­land inspect­ing the keels of all ten (10) Great Lakes Har­bor Tugs.

The Mar­itime Trans­porta­tion Act of 2004 reclas­si­fied tow­ing ves­sels as ves­sels sub­ject to inspec­tion and autho­rized the Sec­re­tary of the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty to estab­lish require­ments for a safe­ty man­age­ment sys­tem appro­pri­ate for the char­ac­ter­is­tics, meth­ods of oper­a­tion and the unique nature of tow­ing ves­sels. These require­ments make up Sub­chap­ter M.

As pro­vid­ed in the Sub­chap­ter M reg­u­la­tions, cer­tain reg­u­la­tions are to be phased-in and exist­ing tow­ing ves­sels will have an addi­tion­al two years to com­ply with most of the require­ments. With cer­tain excep­tions, these reg­u­la­tions apply to U.S.-flag tow­ing ves­sels 26 feet or more in length and those less than 26 feet mov­ing barges car­ry­ing oil or haz­ardous mate­r­i­al in bulk. The rule lays out new com­pli­ance options as well as new equip­ment, con­struc­tion and oper­a­tional require­ments for tow­ing vessels.

American Bureau of Shipping

Great Lakes Ship­yard to Build First Tugs to Com­ply with USCG Sub­chap­ter M Reg­u­la­tions in U.S. to ABS Class

Pic­tured (Left to Right): John McDon­ald, Vice Pres­i­dent — Cen­tral Region, ABS Amer­i­c­as; Scott Tozzi, Prin­ci­pal Sur­vey­or, ABS Cleve­land; Roy Bleiberg, Vice Pres­i­dent, Engi­neer­ing, ABS Amer­i­c­as inspect­ing the keels of all ten (10) Great Lakes Har­bor Tugs.

“We are proud to con­tin­ue serv­ing as a trust­ed tech­ni­cal advi­sor to the Great Lakes Tow­ing com­pa­ny and expand­ing our rela­tion­ship through this project,” says John McDon­ald, ABS Region­al Vice Pres­i­dent for the cen­tral Unit­ed States.

“Build­ing to Class and ISM cer­ti­fi­ca­tion shows a strong com­mit­ment to meet­ing the require­ments under Sub­chap­ter M, and we at ABS look for­ward to help­ing own­ers and oper­a­tors iden­ti­fy the right solu­tions for their fleets.”

Learn more at www.eagle.org/subchapterM

Keel Laying Ceremony Acknowledgements & Attendees

United States Coast Guard – USCG

• Cap­tain Joe DuFresne, USCG Sec­tor Com­man­der, Buf­fa­lo, NY
• LCDR Mick­ey Dougher­ty, Com­mand­ing Offi­cer, USCG Marine Safe­ty Unit Cleveland
• PO Lau­ren Laugh­lin, USCG D9 Pub­lic Affairs (Not Pictured)
• CWO Robie Moor­house, Marine Inspec­tor, USCG Marine Safe­ty Unit Cleveland
• LT Vau­na Streep­er, Chief of Inspec­tions, USCG Marine Safe­ty Unit Cleveland
• Nick Suvak, Marine Inspec­tor, USCG Marine Safe­ty Unit Cleveland

American Bureau of Shipping – ABS

• John McDon­ald, Vice Pres­i­dent, Cen­tral Region, Americas
• Roy Bleiberg, Vice Pres­i­dent, Engi­neer­ing, Americas
• Den­nis Bryson, Dis­trict Man­ag­er, Great Lakes
• Scott Tozzi, Prin­ci­pal Sur­vey­or, Cleveland

Damen

• Daan Dijx­hoorn, Project Manager
• Andrew McBride, Lead Engi­neer Shipbuilding

The Buyer: Fifth Third Bank

• Pat Myers, ‎Vice Pres­i­dent Equip­ment Finance (Not Pictured)
• Casey Her­schler, Sur­vey­or, North Amer­i­can Marine

The Builder: Great Lakes Shipyard

• Dou­glas Bar­row, New Con­struc­tion Manager
• Jonathan Lei­vo, P.E., Direc­tor of Engineering
• Tim Chase, Project Man­ag­er (Not Pictured)

The Operator: The Great Lakes Towing Company

• Joe Star­ck, President
• Gregg Thau­vette, Vice Pres­i­dent, Operations
• Lind­say R. Dew, Direc­tor of Oper­a­tions & Com­pli­ance (Not Pictured)
• Mark Del­ven­thal, Direc­tor of Tech­ni­cal Ser­vice & Busi­ness Development

About The Great Lakes Towing Company & Great Lakes Shipyard

Great Lakes Ship­yard is a full-ser­vice ship­yard for new ves­sel con­struc­tion includ­ing new work­boats and barges, truck­able prod­ucts, cus­tom fab­ri­ca­tion, ship main­te­nance and repairs, in a world-class facil­i­ty that includes state-of-the-art equip­ment such as a 770-ton mobile Trav­elift and a 300-ton float­ing dry­dock. GLS facil­i­ties are locat­ed at the Company’s head­quar­ters on the Old Riv­er Chan­nel of the Cuya­hoga Riv­er in Cleve­land, Ohio. GLT’s ship­yard exper­tise includes design­ing, build­ing and main­tain­ing its own fleet, as well as an exten­sive list of com­mer­cial and gov­ern­ment tug­boats, sup­ply boats, fer­ries, barges, cruise boats, large yachts, and many oth­er types of ves­sels, includ­ing larg­er domes­tic and for­eign car­go ves­sels. The ship­yard is a major con­trac­tor for the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey, U.S. Army Corps of Engi­neers, EPA, and many oth­er fed­er­al, state and local gov­ern­ments, attest­ing to its high-qual­i­ty work­man­ship, on-time per­for­mance, and com­pet­i­tive pric­ing. Learn more at www.greatlakesshipyard.com

Great Lakes Ship­yard is a divi­sion of The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny, an indus­try leader since 1899, pro­vid­ing essen­tial, com­mer­cial tug­boat ser­vices such as har­bor assist and tow­ing, ice­break­ing and car­go trans­porta­tion in more than 35 U.S. ports, in all 8 U.S. Great Lakes’ states, includ­ing Ohio, Michi­gan, Illi­nois, Indi­ana, Min­neso­ta, Wis­con­sin, Penn­syl­va­nia, New York, and the St. Lawrence Riv­er. Learn more at www.thegreatlakestowingcompany.com

About Damen

Damen Ship­yards Group oper­ates 32 ship­build­ing and repair yards, employ­ing 9,000 peo­ple world­wide. Damen has deliv­ered more than 5,000 ves­sels in more than 100 coun­tries and deliv­ers some 160 ves­sels annu­al­ly to cus­tomers world­wide. Based on its unique, stan­dard­ized ship-design con­cept Damen is able to guar­an­tee con­sis­tent qual­i­ty. Damen’s focus on stan­dard­iza­tion, mod­u­lar con­struc­tion and keep­ing ves­sels in stock leads to short deliv­ery times, low ‘total cost of own­er­ship’, high resale val­ues and reli­able per­for­mance. Fur­ther­more, Damen ves­sels are based on thor­ough R&D and proven tech­nol­o­gy. Damen offers a wide range of prod­ucts, includ­ing tugs, work­boats, naval and patrol ves­sels, high speed craft, car­go ves­sels, dredgers, ves­sels for the off­shore indus­try, fer­ries, pon­toons and superyachts.

For near­ly all ves­sel types Damen offers a broad range of ser­vices, includ­ing main­te­nance, spare parts deliv­ery, train­ing and the trans­fer of (ship­build­ing) know-how. Damen also offers a vari­ety of marine com­po­nents, such as noz­zles, rud­ders, anchors, anchor chains and steel works. In addi­tion to ship design and ship­build­ing, Damen Shiprepair & Con­ver­sion has a world­wide net­work of 15 repair and con­ver­sion yards with dry docks rang­ing up to 420 x 80 meters. Con­ver­sion projects range from adapt­ing ves­sels to today’s require­ments and reg­u­la­tions to the com­plete con­ver­sion of large off­shore struc­tures. DSC com­pletes around 1,500 repair and main­te­nance jobs annu­al­ly. Learn more at www.damen.com

About American Bureau of Shipping – ABS

Found­ed in 1862, ABS is a lead­ing inter­na­tion­al clas­si­fi­ca­tion soci­ety devot­ed to pro­mot­ing the secu­ri­ty of life and prop­er­ty and pre­serv­ing the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment through the devel­op­ment and ver­i­fi­ca­tion of stan­dards for the design, con­struc­tion and oper­a­tional main­te­nance of marine and off­shore assets. As a tech­nol­o­gy leader and trust­ed advi­sor to the mar­itime indus­try, ABS is at the fore­front of aid­ing design­ers, builders, own­ers and oper­a­tors in com­ply­ing with the new Sub­chap­ter M require­ments. Learn more at www.eagle.org

About Fifth Third Bank

Fifth Third Ban­corp, estab­lished in 1858, is a diver­si­fied finan­cial ser­vices com­pa­ny head­quar­tered in Cincin­nati, Ohio. The Com­pa­ny has $144 bil­lion in assets and oper­ates 1,191 full-ser­vice Bank­ing Cen­ters, includ­ing 94 Bank Mart® loca­tions, most open sev­en days a week, inside select gro­cery stores and 2,541 ATMs in Ohio, Ken­tucky, Indi­ana, Michi­gan, Illi­nois, Flori­da, Ten­nessee, West Vir­ginia, Penn­syl­va­nia, Geor­gia and North Car­oli­na. Fifth Third oper­ates four main busi­ness­es: Com­mer­cial Bank­ing, Branch Bank­ing, Con­sumer Lend­ing, and Wealth and Asset Man­age­ment. Fifth Third also has an 18.3% inter­est in Van­tiv Hold­ing, LLC. Fifth Third is among the largest mon­ey man­agers in the Mid­west and, as of June 30, 2016, had $305 bil­lion in assets under care, of which it man­aged $26 bil­lion for indi­vid­u­als, cor­po­ra­tions and not-for-prof­it orga­ni­za­tions. Investor infor­ma­tion and press releas­es can be viewed at www.53.com. Fifth Third’s com­mon stock is trad­ed on the Nas­daq® Glob­al Select Mar­ket under the sym­bol “FITB.”  Learn more at www.53.com

About United States Coast Guard — The Ninth Coast Guard District

The U.S. Coast Guard is one of the five armed forces of the Unit­ed States and the only mil­i­tary orga­ni­za­tion with­in the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty. Since 1790 the Coast Guard has safe­guard­ed our Nation’s mar­itime inter­ests and envi­ron­ment around the world. The Coast Guard is an adapt­able, respon­sive mil­i­tary force of mar­itime pro­fes­sion­als whose broad legal author­i­ties, capa­ble assets, geo­graph­ic diver­si­ty and expan­sive part­ner­ships pro­vide a per­sis­tent pres­ence along our rivers, in the ports, lit­toral regions and on the high seas. Coast Guard pres­ence and impact is local, region­al, nation­al and inter­na­tion­al. These attrib­ut­es make the Coast Guard a unique instru­ment of mar­itime safe­ty, secu­ri­ty and envi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship. Learn more at www.uscg.mil

The Ninth Coast Guard Dis­trict is respon­si­ble for all Coast Guard oper­a­tions through­out the five Great Lakes, the Saint Lawrence Sea­way and parts of the sur­round­ing states includ­ing 6,700 miles of shore­line and 1,500 miles of the inter­na­tion­al bor­der with Cana­da. The 6,000 active duty, reserve, civil­ian and aux­il­iary men and women who make up the Ninth Dis­trict deliv­er mul­ti-mis­sion ser­vices in search and res­cue, mar­itime safe­ty and secu­ri­ty, envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, mar­itime law enforce­ment, aids to nav­i­ga­tion and ice­break­ing. Learn more at www.uscg.mil/d9