Page 52: of Marine News Magazine (May 2013)

VESSELSVT Halter Marine held a christening ceremony for USNS MAURY (T-AGS 66) at its Halter Moss Point fa- cility in late March. VT Halter Marine is a designer and builder of specialized oceanographic ships for the U.S. Navy and has experience in building the previous six ships of the T-AGS 60 Class. In December 2009, VT Halter Marine was awarded a contract of approximately $87 mil- lion to build an enhanced version of the T-AGS 60 Class oceanographic survey ship for the U.S. Navy. Construc- tion of T-AGS 66 began in September 2010; the keel lay- ing ceremony was held in February 2011, and delivery is expected in January 2014. The vessel has an additional 24 feet in length to the previous design which will accommo- date a moon pool for deployment and retrieval of autono- mous underwater vehicles. Designed to perform acoustic, biological, physical, and geophysical surveys, T-AGS 66 will provide the U.S. military with essential information on the ocean environment. The ship?s sponsor is the Honorable Lisa P. Jackson, for- mer Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agen- cy (EPA), who as Administrator focused much of her efforts on the BP oil spill that ravaged the Gulf Coast area. T-AGS 66 is named in honor of Cmdr. Matthew Fontaine Maury, nicknamed ?Path nder of the Seas,? and also known as the ?Father of Modern Oceanography.? The vessel is 353 feet in length with an overall beam of 58 feet, and will be operating under the Military Sealift Command. Ship docking tugs now take the Z-drive for granted, but it has found only limited acceptance for river towboats. That is about to change with a new boat being built for The Carline Companies at Raymond and Associates in Bayou LaBatre. When the big tows of up to forty 195 by 35-foot barges come down river, it is the  eeting tugs job to take selected barges off the tow and park them in the riverside  eet. A  eet is a string of barges moored along the river for which smaller towboats provide switching and shifting duties. Later they will take the barges to nearby docks or ships moored in mid-stream for off loading. This is a job that requires a power and agility in the towboat that moves these barges around. It is a high demand job in which time and timing are all important. When Car- lines new 68 X 34-foot boat, M/V USS Cairo, goes to work at the  eet in September 2013 it will herald a new era that will, as did the early z-drive harbor tugs, create a whole new set of performance standards. Designed by the naval architect  rm of Townsend Marine Designs in South Portland, Maine there are more than the Z-drives to catch the attention of the industry. The octagonal wheelhouse, with its 360-degree windows, is also reminiscent of a harbor tug. The wheelhouse sits atop a deck cabin with sloped sidewalls to provide opti- mum visibility to the working deck fore and aft. Unlike other  eet boats, the new vessel will have push knees both fore and aft. On deck there will be two Win-Tech 65-ton winches for face wires and a single Win-Tech Capstan. A Pal nger PK- 12000 crane will be mounted foreward on the  rst deck level. Main propulsion will be provided by a pair of Tier III com- pliant Cummins QSK19-M engines each delivering 750 HP through Twin Disc HPTO366 gears to the Z-drives. These drives will be Thrustmaster 750 Azimuth Thruster- TH750 MZ. A pair of Cummins QSB-7-powered 150 kW genera- tors will provide auxiliary power. In anticipation of the new Subchapter M regulations for inland towboats, Carline and their design team have worked to aproximate the, as yet un- con rmed, guidelines. As with most  eet towboats this will be a day boat with a galley but no need for overnight accom- modation. Tankage will include 16,000 gallons of fuel, 3,000 gallons of water and 400 gallons of lube oil. The M/V USS Cairos z-drive propulsion system is the  rst of its kind on a dedicated  eet boat working on the Mississippi River. VT Halter Marine Christens T-AGS 60 CLASS Oceanographic Survey Ship A New Era in FleetingMay 201352 MNMN May2013 Layout 50-59.indd 52MN May2013 Layout 50-59.indd 525/3/2013 1:00:45 PM5/3/2013 1:00:45 PM