Christmas Greeting

 As with companion blog Shipfax I like to send out older photos at Christmas time, along with best wishes for the holiday season.

My choice for this year is the tug Avantage when it was operating for the Quebec City based Groupe Océan. It is seen here while providing stern escort duties for the retired Great Lakes passenger ship Aquarama (renamed Marine Trader) in August 2007.

Lead tug for the trip to Aliaga, Turkey, was the Greek Aetos Z and the tow is off Quebec City on August 4, 2007. (Avantage accompanied the tow from Trois-Rivières as far as the Escoumins pilot station.)

Not long after and a little farther down stream off Ile d'Orléans, it was possible to get some tighter photos. (Aetos Z was built in 1986 by Yaroslavl as the USSR tug, then 1997-2006 as the training ship Muzhestvennyy.)

Avantage has an interesting history, it started life as the Sea Lion of the famed Belgian fleet of  Union de Remorquage et de Sauvetage (URS). The 2160 bhp, 34 ton BP single screw tug came to Canada in 1997 for Remorquage de Trois-Rivières / Three Rivers Boatmen and later merged into Groupe Océan. 

Laid up in Quebec City in 2018, it was "sold" earlier this year to Guyanese owners and renamed Kane G. Along with fleet mates Océan Echo II (renamed Brianna T) and the ATB Mega / Motti (tug renamed Mega II) all are now detained in Trois-Rivières, QC where they are likely to remain until next year - they are unlikely to depart in winter.

Built for work in the short steep seas of the English Channel it has a high bow and was probably a fine sea boat in its day. Its future is very much cloudy now. 

In closing I wish to thank all Tugfax readers for their support during 2021 and wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous 2023.

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Océan sells off older units

 Quebec City based Groupe Océan has apparenty sold its four older units to the Georgetown, Guyana company BK Marine Inc. (The company is part of the huge BK Group, a conglomerate of transportation, construction, and infrastructure operations.) The tugs have been inactive for some time, but have been maintained in  "warm layup". All four are veterans, and can be expected to see a few more years of service in the Caribbean /South America.

The tugs are:

Ocean Echo II , previously covered in this blog May

 Now renamed Brianna K the tug is tied up in Quebec City with fleet mate Océan Basques which has been renamed  Bradley G. 

The Océan Basques has also been covered here numeorus times, including my September 2014 post.

Océan Echo II and Océan Basques at the Industrie Océan shipyard in Ile-aux-Coudres in 2014. Both are twin screw tugs.
 

BK Marine has also acquired the Avantage, now renamed Kane G. I speculated on its potential sale, also in May 2022.

 The fourth and final tug is Mega - not so far renamed, and presumably its barge Motti as well -both of which remain laid up in Sorel-Tracy, QC.

The Brianna T ex Océan Echo II is fitted  with hydraulic rams for articulated tug/barge work, and Mega is also paired with its barge, Motti and it is likely that BK Marine has found work for such combinations. Bradley G ex Océan Basques is a powerful twin screw tug, and could be an asset in the right place (but won't need its ice breaking abilities in Guyana).  Kane G ex Avantage as a low powered single screw tug is a little harder to figure, but perhaps in an "en bloc" sale, it was part of the deal. 

So far no sailing dates have been posted, but the tugs in Quebec City are flying the Guyana flag, and have their new names painted on.

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