The
christening ceremony was also addressed by the managing director of the
Rimorchiatori Group Mr Gregorio Gavarone who spoke about the company's
commitment to offer an excellent service to its clients as well as the
challenges of the Group to recruit local qualified seafarers to work on
the Group's vessels.
The
€10.7 million tug was ordered from the Spanish Shipyard Armon S.A. and
was primarily designed to operate in the Maltese harbours and their
approaches. The tug is fully equipped with Fire-Fighting Class 1, oil
recovery and salvage equipment, in order to be prepared for any
emergency that may occur in Maltese waters, or off port in the
Mediterranean. The vessel is equipped with Voith Schneider propulsion
and twin MAK main engines able to give a total power of 7180 BHP,
resulting in the powerful bollard pull of 80 tonnes.The winch installed
on board the tug is a double drum in waterfall arrangement, having the
upper drum for long distance purposes with a drum capacity of 1000 m
steel wire rope. The tug also has a lower drum divided into two
sections, one for escorting purposes (capacity 250 metres of synthetic
rope) and one for harbour towing (capacity 150 metres of synthetic
rope).
The vessel was delivered to Malta from Spain under the command of Capt.
Herman Thornton, Tug Malta's Operations Manager and manned by a Maltese
crew. She will be based in Malta and will carry out both harbour towage
services and salvage/off port towage services.
The Spinola is the latest addition to Tug Malta's present fleet of six modern tugs
