October 16 - Crowley Maritime has christened the second of its four dynamic positioning 2 (DP2) tugs in the ocean class series and welcomed the vessel to the company's expanded ocean towing fleet.
Speaking at the christening ceremony, which was attended by approximately 80 guests, Tom Crowley, chairman and ceo of Crowley Maritime said: "Today we are pleased to formally welcome Ocean Sun, the latest of our four Jones Act ocean class tugboats, to the fleet and culminate this multi-year build programme."
Ocean Sun is part of a feature-rich, four-vessel family of tugs, which Crowley says is ideally suited to work with the company's new 455 series high-deck strength barges, which measure 400 ft long by 105 ft wide (121.92 m by 32 m).
Crowley's ocean class tugs are outfitted for long-range, high capacity ocean towing, rig moves, platform and floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit tows, emergency response and firefighting. The company's tug fleet has been involved in most of the major offshore oil production installations in the US Gulf of Mexico over the past 18 months.
All four of the ocean class tugboats are designed to have a minimum bollard pull of 150 tonnes and a range of approximately 12,600 nautical miles at 15 knots free running. They are outfitted with twin-screw, controllable-pitch propellers in nozzles and high lift rudders for a combination of performance and fuel economy.
Crowley's solutions group is a Project Management Organisation (PMOrg) providing marine solutions as a prime contractor for the energy and resource extraction industries. This specialised team, which has its main Project Management Office (PMO) in Houston, Texas, provides turnkey marine solutions through the company's diverse capabilities, assets and project management skills.
