Tugboats for Sale

Bollard pull is the figure a tug is bought and chartered on. It is documented on the Bollard Pull Certificate, which plays an important role in the sale and delivery of a tug — but MARIN’s joint industry project found that issued certificates are not always reliable, because no single standard for conducting, measuring and analysing a bollard pull test has been in place. Ask who witnessed the test, when and where it was done, and whether the engines and propellers are still as tested; if the certificate is old or doubtful, make a witnessed retest a condition of the sale.^[1]

Start with class. When a ship moves between IACS member societies, the gaining society obtains the ship’s current status directly from the losing one under the transfer-of-class agreement, and the class entry survey it then carries out is set by the ship’s age and the losing society’s class status — from an annual survey for a ship under five years old up to a special survey at 20 years and over. A ship coming from a domestic register (ZC, China’s, is common in this list) is not a transfer between IACS members; ask the society you intend to class with what its entry survey will cover before you make an offer.^[2]

Ask for the records the class societies themselves review on a transfer: damages, major repairs, hull conversions and machinery alterations with their dates, the condition evaluation or hull summary report where one exists, the history of conditions of class, thickness measurements from the last special survey (including areas of substantial corrosion), the report of that survey and the periodical reports since, the coating condition of the water ballast tanks, and any restriction on the navigation area.^[3]

Check the ship on Equasis, which publishes safety-related information on ships and companies free of charge to registered users, against the particulars in the listing.^[4]