Crowley Maritime Corp. said that the third of four tugboats in the Ocean-class series, Ocean Sky, has been christened in Houston. The ceremony served to formally welcome the third dynamic positioning (DP) tugboat to the company’s expanded ocean towing fleet, which has been involved in most of the major offshore oil production installations in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico over the past 16 months.

Todd Busch, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Crowley’s solutions group, opened the ceremony to approximately 140 guests. He was followed by a series of speakers including Joe Huley, Vice President, NC Power Systems, and Bruce Greshman, Vice President, Heerema Marine Contractors, a Crowley customer who spoke about the 20-year relationship the two companies have enjoyed – a relationship, he remarked was based on “mutual trust, cooperation and responsibility to achieve the same goals.”

Following an introduction of the tug’s crew members and a blessing of the vessel by Father Sinclair Oubre, Jennifer Legg, Crowley’s assistant treasurer and vessel sponsor, broke the ceremonial bottle of champagne across the hull of the boat.

Shell, Anadarko and Chevron, all of whom have contracted the ocean class vessels for service also had representatives in attendance as did Congressman Gene Green’s office and the area’s port commission.

The Ocean Sky, which features DP2 technology, is part of a feature-rich, four-vessel family of tugs ideally suited to work with Crowley's new 455 series high-deck strength barges, which measure 400 feet long by 105 feet wide (121.92 meters by 32 meters). Crowley’s ocean class tugs are outfitted for long-range high-capacity ocean towing; rig moves; platform and floating production; storage and offloading (FPSO) unit tows; emergency response and firefighting.

Crowley explain that all four of the ocean class tugboats are designed to have a minimum bollard pull of 150 metric tons and a range of approximately 12,600 nautical miles at 15 knots free running. They are outfitted with twin-screw, controllable-pitch propellers in nozzles and high lift rudders for a combination of performance and fuel economy.

The fourth and last planned vessel in the series, Ocean Sun, is slated for formal christening in Lake Charles, La., during mid-August by Coreen Busch, wife of Todd Busch.

crowley.com