Atlantic Marine & Towage’s 20.8-ton bollard pull Ocean Battler, based in Co. Cork, has departed Plymouth, Cornwall, with a jack-up barge in tow that is bound for Dublin Port today, writes Jehan Ashmore.
The Ocean Battler, based at its owner’s homeport of Bere Island, off Castletownbere, when making its return journey in the English Channel from the Netherlands after dropping another barge off in Rotterdam, was called with a task from Irish firm, Ocean Crest Marine Ltd. This was to pick up their jack up barge Admiral 1 when passing off the UK south coast.
Ocean Battler proceeded to Plymouth and departed the English south-west port on Tuesday towing the Admiral 1, which Afloat established from Atlantic Marine was for another Irish firm, Ocean Crest Marine, based in The Docks, Galway. The west coast company, with a fleet of support boats, spud barges, almost a year ago acquired the jack-up barge as their fifth. It is a Combifloat Systems B.V. 400t C7 unit which measures 30m in length, has an 18m beam, and has four 36m height legs.
It was on Wednesday night when Afloat first came across Ocean Battler when tracked doing a sedate 3.8 knots with the jack-up barge Admiral 1 in the Celtic Sea. Further to the west, Brittany Ferries Armorique, having departed Cork was heading towards Land’s End when bound for Roscoff. The large ropax /cruise ferry was on its penultimate sailing as the season on the Ireland-France route is to cease this weekend, but in the interim period to today, it has already operated a routine round trip on the Roscoff-Plymouth route, which was completed this morning.
On a related note to ferries, the tug and jack-up barge have since arrived off Killiney Bay and remain this morning but are scheduled to arrive in Dublin this afternoon. Towing operations are to involve the former P&O Ferries terminal (5) located at the east of the port's northern estate.
The former Clyde Marine Ltd pusher tug, then named Battler, had served a career until the 19.5m tug was acquired and renamed by Atlantic Marine & Towage. This took place in 2001 after an overhaul at the MacDuff shipyard, where emerged the Ocean Battler which was put straight to work for the Irish owner on construction works of the NnG Wind Farm on the Firth of Forth, on Scotland’s east coast.
The south-west based Atlantic Marine & Towage is a salvage, towage and marine operational support contractor, operating a fleet of 14 versatile vessels. Among them is the newbuild Ocean Transfer, which, as the name indicates, is a crew transfer vessel that recently was deployed to Germany and is serving in the Baltic Sea.
As for Ocean Battler, the tug, retains its previous link with Scotland as Glasgow is its port of registry and is flagged to the UK Red Ensign. It was built by Damen Shipyards to their Stan Type 1906 design and was completed a decade ago by the Dutch group, and its specifications meet classification society, Bureau Veritas.
The tug is highly manoeuvrable for harbour work and is suited also for coastal passage towage duties. It’s wheelhouse, as to be expected, has all-round viewing overlooking operations both fore and aft from where deck cargo of up to 12 tons can be stored.
Also, the large wheelhouse can seat up to 12 crew/personal. As for accommodation for the crew, this comprises a single berth cabin and a 4 berth cabin, along with a galley and toilet/shower facilities.
