The Rotterdam based shipping company Rotortug and ASD Ship Design from Alblasserdam have invented a revolutionary tugboat technology (‘tugnology’) to prevent towline failures from chafing against a tugboats fixed towing point. The invention of Mr. Ton Kooren (Rotortug) and Mr. Arie Aalbers (ASD Ship Design), the so called azimuth friction free towing point, is presented today at the 22nd International Tug, Salvage and OSV (ITS) convention in Barcelona, Spain.

Conventional towing point designs are usually fixed bitts fitted with polished and stainless steel cladding in line contact areas guiding a towline to a towing winch. Using state of the art towing winches, towlines are winched in and out automatically by using a pre‐set line force to prevent both dynamic overloads and slack wires. Synthetic towlines can easily fail due to chafing and friction with increased risks for safety.

Tags: Rotortug