Story Photos
 Foss Maritime Co. in Rainier is building the world's first hybrid tug, which combines batteries, generators and engines to curb fuel costs. Roger Werth / The Daily News
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Rainier company's hybrid tug quietly moving ahead
Tuesday, September 9, 2008 11:31 PM PDT
By Erik Olson
Printable version
E-mail this articleRAINIER — Foss Maritime Co. is hoping to make a lot of noise in the shipping industry with a one-of-a-kind hybrid tug boat that travels with nearly no sound.
“When this thing pulls away from the dock, it will be silent,” said Rick McKenna, project manager at the company’s Rainier shipyard, where the tug is being built.
Workers are slated to finish construction this fall of the tug boat, which is powered by diesel fuel and electricity, said Susan Hayman, vice president at Foss, whose headquarters are in Seattle.
The hybrid technology is expected to cut fuel costs by about 30 percent, Hayman said. The 9-ton battery will need to be replaced about every 2 1/2 years at a cost of $75,000, McKenna said.
The $8 million boat is headed for Southern California in January to begin guiding large ships, Hayman said. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach contributed $2.2 million to the project with the idea of reducing pollution in the already smoggy air, she said.
The hybrid tug costs about $2 million to $3 million more than a regular diesel tug, which is why most ship manufacturers have been hesitant to jump into the hybrid market without knowing how it will work, Hayman said. The 300-ton hybrid is also 15 tons heavier than the standard tugboat because of the additional power generators, she said.
“I think a lot of people are waiting until it gets into the water,” Hayman said.
The high cost of building the hybrid tug from scratch means another won’t be coming soon, she said. But Foss will start looking at adding the hybrid technology to existing diesel, and the company is willing to build hybrid tugs for other companies, she said.
“This yard built a good boat, and we’ll build them for someone else,” Hayman said.
The key breakthrough for Foss engineers came when they realized the tug spends about 65 percent of its time idling, which allows the engine to shift to electric power for much of that time, Hayman said. Piloting the boat will be the same for crew, Hayman said, save one major difference.
“That’s going to be the biggest thing for them to get used to — the quiet,” Hayman said.
The 78-foot-long hybrid tug is the 10th and final member of Foss’s Dolphin line. Foss announced its intentions to build the boat in April 2007, though the idea had been kicked around for the past seven years, Hayman said. Construction of the boat began in January, she said.
In addition to the new hybrid tug, Foss has stated it will build four 128-foot oceangoing tugs in the Rainier yard for its sister company, Hawaiian Tug & Barge. The company has added 26 employees at the Rainier shipyard, for a total of 50, to handle the additional work, Hayman said.
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