Anchor Handling Tug Operations

Published: April 2013

From the publishers of International Tug & OSV, which gives a clear insight into the safe operation of Anchor Handling Tug Supply Vessels. It is aimed at the Masters and Officers who operate these vessels and at Towmasters, Rig Movers, Barge Masters, Tower Foremen and shore based personnel who utilise these vessels in their anchor handling and towing roles.

It endeavours to show in practical and simple terms the theoretical knowledge, methods and techniques that can be used to avoid placing these vessels at unnecessary risk when carrying out what, at first sight, appear to be 'normal' operations.
Two recent examples of accidents, resulting in the total loss of AHTS class vessels and members of their crews, are used to illustrate what can happen and why: Stevns Power and Bourbon Dolphin.

Consideration is also given to the fact that AHTS vessels are a design compromise and that it is this which may lead to over confidence in the ability of a particular vessel to carry out a given towing or anchor-handling operation. Training is also scrutinised: as the older generation of offshore support vessels is replaced by new tonnage and older officers and offshore personnel retire, the experience, hard lessons and skills gained by this older generation have not been fully transferred.