CODEN, Ala. — Master Boat Builders has put another powerful workboat in the water. The Coden shipyard has launched the Titan, the third of four RApport 3000-class escort tugs it is building for Suderman & Young Towing Co., a harbor towing company that operates along the Texas Gulf Coast.
The launch keeps the four-boat series moving at the south Mobile County yard, which delivered the first tug in the program, the Saturn, in June.
“Titan reflects the strength of our partnership with Suderman & Young, and our team’s ability to deliver high-performance escort tugs that meet the needs of today’s harbor operations,” said Garrett Rice, president of Master Boat Builders. The company said it looks forward to continuing the program with the fourth and final boat in the series.
Built to push, pull and escort
The RApport 3000 series is designed for demanding harbor work: assisting large ships as they dock and undock, and escorting vessels through busy channels and port approaches.
The Titan’s key specifications include:
- Length and beam: 98 feet long and 43 feet wide.
- Power: Two engines producing a combined 7,000 horsepower.
- Bollard pull: More than 90 metric tons, according to industry reports on the launch.
- Speed: About 13 knots.
- Crew: Accommodations for six.
- Fuel capacity: 44,342 gallons of fuel oil.
- Tonnage: Registers at under 300 gross registered tons.
That combination of size and horsepower in a relatively compact hull is what makes a boat like the Titan useful in a port. Keeping the vessel under 300 gross tons also gives an operator flexibility across a range of port and escort assignments.
What an escort tug does
Bollard pull — the measure of how hard a tug can pull while tied to a fixed point — is the number harbor operators watch most closely. It determines how large a ship a tug can safely handle.
Ship-assist tugs push and pull large vessels such as tankers, container ships and bulk carriers as they maneuver into and out of berths, where the big ships have little room and little ability to steer at slow speeds. Escort tugs go a step further: they travel alongside or behind a ship through a channel, ready to help steer or slow it down if it loses power or steering. Escort work is common in ports that handle oil, chemicals and other hazardous cargo, where a grounding or collision could be costly and dangerous.
Along the Texas coast, home to some of the nation’s busiest petroleum and petrochemical ports, that kind of capability is in steady demand.
A four-boat series for a Texas customer
Suderman & Young provides harbor tug and marine towing services along the Texas Gulf Coast. The company’s relationship with Master Boat predates this series. When the Coden yard delivered the Saturn on June 24, Rice described it as a continuation of “our long-standing relationship with Suderman & Young.”
“The Saturn represents the continued execution of our commitment to Suderman & Young and to the highest standards of shipbuilding,” Rice said at the time.
The Saturn and the Titan share the same RApport 3000 design and the same core specifications: 98 feet long with a 43-foot molded beam, 7,000 horsepower, more than 90 metric tons of bollard pull, a crew of six and 44,342 gallons of fuel capacity.
The RApport name comes from Robert Allan Ltd., the Vancouver, British Columbia, naval architecture firm whose tug designs are used by operators around the world. Building several identical hulls in a series lets a shipyard refine its methods from one boat to the next and gives the operator a fleet of interchangeable vessels.
Four decades on the Mississippi Sound
Master Boat Builders has been building vessels in Coden since 1979. The company has completed more than 460 vessels, including tugboats, offshore supply vessels, fishing vessels and dive support vessels.
Coden sits on the Mississippi Sound in southern Mobile County, just west of Bayou La Batre, in a stretch of coastline where boatbuilding and commercial fishing have long anchored the local economy. The same protected water that supports the area’s shrimp fleet has made it a natural home for shipyards.
The yard’s order book has been growing beyond commercial customers. Earlier this month, Master Boat announced that it will build Landing Craft, Utility vessels for the U.S. Navy under an agreement that includes three craft with an option for a fourth, with work continuing in Coden through 2029. It is the company’s first defense shipbuilding award as a prime shipyard, after earlier Navy work as part of a distributed shipbuilding arrangement.
Together, the tug series and the Navy award point to a busy few years ahead for the Coden workforce, whose skills Rice has repeatedly credited for the company’s reputation.
What comes next
After launch, a vessel typically moves to outfitting and sea trials before it is formally delivered to its owner. With the Titan in the water, Master Boat’s next milestone in the program will be completing the fourth and final RApport 3000 tug for Suderman & Young.