Return of the Osprey and other Atlantic Towing activity

The Province  of Nova Scotia's official bird is the osprey, a migratory fish hawk that usually puts in its first appearance of the year in late April or early May. Today's return of the big tug supplier Atlantic Osprey is certainly seasonally correct, but as to origin, it is coming from St.John's Newfoundland rather than more southern waters.

The 3453 grt, 16,000 bhp OSV is one of four similar ships in the ATL offshore fleet, two of which are UT 722 and two are UT 722L (L=long), all built at Halifax Shipyard under license from Ulstein. The boat was laid up for a time over last winter, and a large deck crane and other gear, such as an ROV davit have been removed.

While arriving it passed Atlantic Towing Ltd's Woodside tug base, where the usual four harbour tugs, Atlantic Oak, Atlantic Fir, Atlantic Willow and Atlantic Bear have been joined temporarily by Atlantic Larch. The latter tug will likely be towing out the barge Atlantic Sea Lion for northern supply work.

Atlantic Bear went to Saint John last week to assist with an LNG tanker, but returned to Halifax in time to put on a water demonstration for the inaugural call of the auto carrier Grande Halifax on Wednesday (see also Shipfax).

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