One Out ... Two In

When Dunlap Towing of LaConner, Wash., bought the James T. Quig a couple of years ago, they renamed her the Rosario. Now the good tug is getting a lot more than a name change. The boat, built in the late 1970s or early '80's, originally had a single engine installed but she had been designed with enough beam for a twin engine installation. She has been operated with a single 900 hp main but now she will get two Cummins KTA38 main engines to be operated at 800 hp each to nearly double the boat's output to 1,600 hp. The beamy 64 x 21-ft. boat can easily handle the two engines. With the beam carried well aft, Dunlap's operations manager Gordon Taylor explains there is lots of space in the lazarette to accommodate the working rams for the twin rudders that will be added behind the two new 70-in. diameter five-blade propellers. The props will be mounted on 6.5-in. shafts coupled to Twin Disc, TD5205, 6:1 ratio gears on the main engines. Calculations show the repowered boat doubling its bollard pull to about 37,000 pounds. The weight of the engines, shafts and gears will also be double that of the single engine, but Taylor doesn't expect more than a couple of inches increase in the draft on her nine-ft. molded depth hull.

Work on the conversion will take place at Dunlap's Everett, Washington facility and at the nearby Hansen Boat Company shipyard this October and November. While the vessel's deck equipment will remain as is, the gen sets will be changed out for new Cummins powered generators.