New Consortium Led by Harland & Wolff to Develop Zero-Emission Coastal Tugs

14th June 2023

According to H&W by creating environmentally-friendly tugs and a class of ultra-efficient large barges to service the UK’s Marine Coastal Highway would not only ease pressure on the nation’s roads and reduce emissions, but also help with the Levelling Up and Net Zero ambitions. Above Afloat in April reported of a previous project for the Belfast shipbuilder, where barges for client the Cory Group involves waste management towage operations along the Thames and central London. Credit: IrishNews-twitter

Shipbuilder Harland & Wolff Group is to lead a consortium of companies from overseas to develop and build new zero emission tugs suitable for coastal towage duties.

The group based in Queen’s Island, Belfast has entered into heads of terms with Scottish designer Macduff Ship Design, Norway’s Kongsberg for propulsion and vessel control systems and in Sweden where Echandia is a battery and electrical control systems specialist.

The creation of the UK consortium involving the four parties is to achieve the common goal of building a zero emissions harbour and coastal tug. They will measure 25.5m in length, have a breath of 12m and draw a draught of 4.85m.

A bollard pull of 50 tonnes capability has been set as for propulsion the proposed tug is expected to have Azimuth stern drives.

More from the Irish News on the proposed tug project.

Published in Shipyards

Tagged under

About The Author

Jehan Ashmore

Email The Author

Jehan Ashmore is a marine correspondent, researcher and photographer, specialising in Irish ports, shipping and the ferry sector serving the UK and directly to mainland Europe. Jehan also occasionally writes a column, 'Maritime' Dalkey for the (Dalkey Community Council Newsletter) in addition to contributing to UK marine periodicals.

We've got a favour to ask

More people are reading Afloat.ie than ever thanks to the power of the internet but we're in stormy seas because advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news sites, we haven’t put up a paywall because we want to keep our marine journalism open.

Afloat.ie is Ireland's only full–time marine journalism team and it takes time, money and hard work to produce our content.

So you can see why we need to ask for your help.

If everyone chipped in, we can enhance our coverage and our future would be more secure. You can help us through a small donation. Thank you.