Number two is Tim McKeil

McKeil has taken delivery of its second ASD tug from Singapore. Pannawonica I arrived in Sydney, NS recently and was registered today in St.John's as Tim McKeil.
My earlier posting about sister tug Lois M gives most of the details about the tug. See: 
http://tugfaxblogspotcom.blogspot.ca/2014/09/first-of-two-for-mckeil.html

Both tugs were delivered by the noted Dutch ship delivery company Redwise. They will deliver just about any floating object anywhere, but they specialize in tugs, largely because they are an offshoot or the famous, but now vanished, tug company Wijsmuller. Long a freestanding independent, their roots are still in tugs.

First both tugs were delivered to Singapore from Australia, some 2200 miles in February 2014. Once there they entered a shipyard for what was described as TLC.

Lois M (as Lambert) sailed from Singapore May 23*, traveling 16,500 miles in 4 1/2 months towing two dump scows, Marmac 250 and Marmac 251, and stopping in Mauritius June 23 and Walvis Bay July 15 for fuel. After delivering the scows to Tampico Mexico, the tug sailed light to Mulgrave. A near disaster was averted off Tampico when Marmac 251 broke loose in Hurricane Dolly September 4. Fortunately it was recovered undamaged by a local tug.

Tim McKeil (as Pannawonica I ) spent more time in the shipyard, where work included the installation of an elevated wheelhouse. They sailed from Singapore July 6, reaching Fremantle July 20 where they had more work done, including prop polishing. There they picked up two split hopper scows, GL 501 and GL 502. Stopping in Mauritius August 28, Walvis Bay September 23, Cape Verde Islands October 20-24, they delivered the scows to Miami November 15, then sailed light tug to Sydney. A five month trip of 5,000 miles.

During the trips, Redwise crews did considerable running maintenance and  generally handed over the tugs in better condition than they found them. These crews are a breed unto themselves, taking on long voyages in small ships, often battling severe conditions of weather, heat and deprivation when systems break down. Rusty water tanks, decks awash and other risks are taken in stride.

Redwise has a website, and crews keep blogs of the trips. If you can't read Dutch, Bing Translation can give you a very rough approximation if your computer has that feature.

Company website:  http://www.redwise.com/page/ship-delivery-transport-crewing.html [go to the bottom of the page for English]


* all dates are approximate.

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