New Tug Equipped for US Tonnage Boom
Petchem, Inc. has taken delivery of its new Farrell & Norton 80’ 5,000HP ASD tug from Gulf Coast Steel Boat Builder’s in Bayou La Batre, Ala. Petchem’s new vessel and equipment help prepare East Coast ports for the increased tonnage coming through the canal in the near future.
In order to better handle larger containerships calling ports on the U.S. East Coast, the tug features a new Container Master Series winch from JonRie Marine Winches. Designed with increased braking capability and rope capacity, the Container Master Series is a heavy duty design to deal with increased loading due to increased sail area of today’s containerships.
The winch system features JonRie’s New Gen-X Controls with its new hall effect foot pedal and joystick operation to provide proportional control of the line haul and line out modes of the winch. The controls also feature JonRie’s message screen to allow the engineers to know the parameters of the winch and if a malfunction occurs the screen will note the cause. The system also features bypass control to negate the SCRs when running and just monitor the winch load across the line of the buss to help reduce heat. The controls also feature JonRie’s new auto abort system to allow the operator a one move to abort the hawser. The tug has a unique design with tapered windows for line of sight with the winch for a safer operation using JonRie’s foot pedal control for hands free control.
JonRie’s standard featured systems are also included on the new tug with a tension readout system with a red back light with dimming controls for better night vision for the master and still displaying the load on the tug and winch.