Equitable Sends Two 95-Foot Tugs To Indonesia On Deck Of Lykes Ship Via Cape Of Good Hope

Marine history was again made in the Port of New Orleans recently when the two new 95-foot oceangoing tugs built by Equitable Shipyards, Inc. of New Orleans, La., were loaded aboard the clipper ship Dolly Turman.

It is believed that the tugs Selat Laut and Selat Makassar are the largest of their type vessels ever to be loaded aboard another vessel for shipment to destination at one time. The tugs were built by Equitable Shipyards for the Government of Indonesia and will be off-loaded by the Lykes ship at Singapore after approximately 27 days, covering approximately 12,900 nautical miles.

The tugs have a dry weight of 235 long tons each. They were lifted onto the deck of the cargo ship by the 600-ton marine crane Avon, owned by Avondale Shipyards.

The tugs are the second and third of a series of five that will be completed by Equitable Shipyards and shipped in the same manner to Indonesia. The vessels are being built at the Madisonrine ville, La., Shipyards of the shipbuilding company.

Behring International, an international freight forwarding firm in New Orleans, is in charge of the shipment of the vessels.

More marine history is being made during the same voyage by Lykes Steamship Company, a New Orleans-based shipping company.

The tugs were placed across the beam of the cargo ship, overhanging the sides of the ship enough to prevent the ship from using the Panama Canal for its trip to the Pacific, the normal shipping route into the Far East.

So, with the New Orleans-built tugs aboard, for the first time in the history of Lykes Steamship Lines one of its ships sailed to the Far East via Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of South Africa, with two tugs as on-deck cargo.

The Dolly Turman is a Gulf Clipper-Class ship with a speed of 20 knots, a deadweight tonnage of 14,662 and displacement of 21,800 tons. She has overall dimensions of 540 feet by 76 feet and is highly automated.

The Selat Laut and Selat Makassar, objects of this history making in the marine industry, have overall dimensions of 95 feet by 29 feet with a 13-foot depth.

The tugs were built to American Bureau of Shipping Class Maltese Cross A-l towing service, Maltese Cross AMS, with full ocean service, and have American Bureau of Shipping loadline assignments.

Each tug is powered by two Caterpillar D-398 Series B turbocharged and after-cooled marine diesel engines with Caterpillar 7261 MG reverse reduction gears.

Each engine has a continuous duty rating of 850 bhp at 1,225 revolutions per minute.

The new vessels will be placed into service by the Indonesian government immediately after their arrival there aboard the Lykes ship. The tugs will be used primarily for shiphandling and towing operations.

The contract for the five tugs for Indonesia was for an amount in excess of $10,000,000 and was awarded by the Department of Transport Communications and Tourism of the Republic of Indonesia.

Cecil M. Keeney, president and chief executive officer of Equitable Shipyards, Inc., and Rear Adm. Haryono Nimpuno, Director General of Sea Communications for the Indonesian Government, executed the contract in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Equitable Shipyards, Inc. builds oceangoing tugs, tug/supply vessels, self-propelled drilling vessels, ferryboats, cargo vessels, support vessels for the offshore oil and gas industry, pipelaying barges, oceangoing barges and other marine equipment for the petroleum and maritime industries worldwide.

The company is the world's largest builder of LASH barges.

Equitable Shipyards, a wholly owned subsidiary of Trinity Industries, Inc., Dallas, Texas, a manufacturer of industrial, marine and structural products, operates two large shipbuilding facilities in the Greater New Orleans area. One of these is at Madisonville, where the five tugs for Indonesia are being built, and the other is in New Orleans on the Industrial Canal.