World’s First High-Powered Electric Tugboat Hits the Water

GORINCHEM, Holland—Damen Shipyards Group has launched the world’s first fully electric tugboat with a 70-ton pulling capacity at its facility in Song Cam, Vietnam. The RSD-E Tug 2513 will have a total power of 3,800 kilowatts and a top speed of 12 knots when it enters service next year in New Zealand at the Port of Auckland.

The 81-foot-long boat, dubbed Sparky, will help the port achieve its goal of becoming a zero-emission facility by 2040.

Echandia Marine in Sweden supplied an E-LTO energy storage system (ESS), an air-cooled modular design based on Toshiba LTO battery cells. The 2.8-megawatt-hour ESS was optimized for the RSD-E Tug application.

Sparky is also equipped with two Kongsberg US255 L PM FP azimuth thrusters that feature permanent magnet electric motors. The state-of-the-art thrusters were assembled at Kongsberg’s maritime facility in Rauma, Finland.

The Damen shipyard has already built several other fully electric vessels, including dredgers and ferries.

Earlier this year, the world’s first all-electric tugboat, the Zeetug built by Navtek Naval Technologies Inc., entered service in Istanbul.

The ASSEMBLY Show South

ASSEMBLY is thrilled to return to the Music City Center in Nashville, TN for The ASSEMBLY Show SOUTH on May 1-2, 2024. This is a booming time for manufacturing and the U.S. South is right in the heart of the action. According to ASSEMBLY’s most recent annual capital spending survey, the South is projected to account for 31 percent of total spending this year, marking the fifth straight year this region has accounted for at least 30 percent of capital spending in the U.S.

In this session, manufacturers will learn how Quality function deployment (QFD) can transform consumers’ qualitative demands into quantitative parameters that will shape the design of their product and, ultimately, their manufacturing process.

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