The ‘PSA Wayra’ ASD tug is soon to enter service as the first tug with a hybrid drive system on South America’s west coast, a move which is said to underscore the commitment by PSA Marine Peru, a wholly owned subsidiary of PSA Marine (Pte), to advance sustainability within the harbour tug sector in Peru.
Hong Kong-based Cheoy Lee Shipyards has built the PSA Wayra to the RAmparts 2400W design from Robert Allan Ltd of Canada. The tug is propelled by Schottel RudderPropellers featuring patented Sydrive-M technology. This mechanical hybrid solution is said to avoid the costly complexity of common hybrid technology, and reduces both the vessel’s maintenance costs and its fuel consumption. It has a particularly efficient and sustainable impact on the operation profile of harbour tugs that regularly alternate between towing and transit operations.
The main propulsion of the ASD tug consists of two diesel-driven type SRP 460 RudderPropellers (2,240 kW each) featuring fixed pitch propellers with a diameter of 2.6m. With this thruster configuration, the 24.4m long and 11.25m wide tug has more than 70t of bollard pull.
Besides this, the rudder propellers feature the certified Schottel LeaCon sealing system which provides safe and reliable protection against contamination of seawater by operating materials.
Sydrive-M connects the port and starboard mounted azimuth thrusters, allowing the thrusters to be driven together by only one of the main engines. This reduces main engine operating hours, thus lowering maintenance costs as well as lower fuel consumption and reduced emissions. The system needs no additional electronical components which is said to offer various advantages as demonstrated by the three main operating modes: light operation or free sailing mode, full thrust operation mode and FiFi mode.
