Given good conditions, one tug is all that is needed (and a good bow thruster) to dock a 41,000 grt ship at the Halterm container terminal in southend Halifax. The same maneuver is carried out several times a week and pilots and tug skippers have it down to a science.
Today there was a little less room to swing the ship due to the outbound car carrier
Resolve [see
Shipfax] but it went off like clock work.
The tug Atlantic Willow has taken up it position on the starboard quarter of the ship (not visible) to assist in swinging the ship almost 180 degrees to tie up at the pier.
Pushing the ship around using half to full power.
Directing operations from the bridge wing, the pilot judges when the ship has turned enough and orders to tug to come around to the port quarter.
Backing off just enough to clear the ship, Atlantic Willow guns up to run around the ship's stern.
Making the tight squeeze between the ship (which is making slow sternway) and pier Willow gets clear.
Only the superb handling characteristics of an ASD tug would permit this quick turn.
As tug and ship catch up with each other, Willow is concealed from view again, but brings the ship swifly alongside.
Sailing from pier 41, 42 Halterm is usually a much simpler matter, as the ship is headed outbound, and only has to be pulled away from the pier, A stern tug and bow thruster usually do the trick. However in high winds a second bow tug may be called in.
That was the case yesterday as the bar taught bow lines of
Zim Panama attest.
The wind was blowing off the pier so strongly that a second tug was needed to hold the ship alongside until the lines were all let go, and then to allow the ship's bow to fall off slowly, so that its stern did not overhang the pier.
Atlantic Larch comes across the harbour to give a hand.
