State Of The Art Tug
The South African built Damen Azimuth Stern Drive tug 3211, the ‘Osayame’ set sail from quay 500 in Cape Town harbour at the end of January 2010 to arrive in Port Harcourt only 12 days later. The ‘Osayame’, meaning God’s gift is the first tug of its kind to be built in SA by Damen Shipyards Cape Town, and its owner Starzs Investments is the first indigenous Nigerian company to commission and own such a vessel. The vessel carries the Nigerian flag and is 100% Nigerian manned. The Osayame’s owner, Mr Greg Ogbeifun and his crew returned to Cape Town last week to oversee its passage to Port Harcourt where the vessel is to be launched on the 12th February. It will be commissioned immediately thereafter into a 5-year contract as a support vessel in the oil bunkering services of client Total Oil’s Nigerian off-shore storage facility.
The Osayame is a Damen designed Azimuth Stern Drive tug 3211 and is an impressive workboat with a bollard pull of nearly 70 tons from its 5600 BHP Caterpillar engines. The Lloyd’s Registered escort tug has full fire fighting and pollution control capability along with its towing, line handling and escorting functionality. The Rolls Royce thrusters allow the tug to turn 360 degrees on its own axis giving ultimate manoeuvrability, particularly in the tight confines of a harbour. She was built at Damen Shipyard Cape Town to an on-time 20-month build programme made possible due to a DSCT initiative of sub-contracting to 5 SMME and BEE local engineering companies.