Page 10: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2010)

10 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News

NEWS

The RAVE Tug Concept

The RAVE tug (Robert Allan Ltd. — Voith Escort) is a new concept for a highly maneuverable, high-performance escort and ship-handling tug jointly developed by

Robert Allan Ltd. and Voith Turbo Marine. The unique characteristic of the RAVE concept is the longitudinal alignment of two Voith drives in contrast to the more con- ventional transverse configuration. The RAVE design offers very precise and im- proved force generation characteristics, which is necessary not only for the demands of indirect escort towing, but also for working in narrow confined harbor and chan- nel areas. The RAVE tug uses the variable pitch characteristics and the X/Y–logic of two Voith Schneider Propellers for optimum power allocation and precise ma- neuvering. The principal advantages of the RAVE tug concept include higher indi- rect steering forces than developed by a conventional VSP configuration. The use of an active drive unit in combination with a small skeg develops higher lateral forces compared to a simple foil-shaped larger skeg. The RAVE tug concept also offers very quick response to directional commands, easy and logical control, excellent control capabilities and omni-directional thrust characteristics in confined ports, channels and locks. The performance and configuration optimization of the RAVE tug is being actively documented through an extensive series of model-tests and

CFD analysis, sponsored jointly by the project partners. This technology can be ap- plied to any size of VSP powered tug, depending upon the application and power. (Image cour tesy Rober t Allan Ltd.)

RAVE 3700 Class Escort Tug Specifications:

Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121.3 ft

Beam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47.5 ft

Depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18.3 ft

Operating Draft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22.6 ft

B.P. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80 tonnes

Fs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .150 tonnes at 10 knots

Keppel FELS Limited (Keppel FELS) is on track towards an on-budget and on-time delivery of the KFELS B Class jackup rig, West Callisto, to Seadrill

Limited (Seadrill) before the end of July 2010. This rig was named at Keppel

FELS recently by Lady Sponsor Mrs Poespawardhani Priyono, spouse Mr R.

Priyono, Chairman of BPMIGAS, Indonesia’s upstream oil and gas supervisory agency. Wong Kok Seng, Executive Director of Keppel FELS, said, “Together,

Keppel and Seadrill have been setting the global standard in offshore drilling since 1993. Our win-win partnership has yielded a fleet of 14 exceptional rigs worth $1.5 billion. West Callisto is expected to commence development drilling operations in Indonesia under a nine-month contract with Premier Oil, in the third quarter of 2010. The KFELS B Class design is designed to provide maxi- mum uptime with reduced emissions and discharges.

Keppel Delivers Seadrill Rig