2 September 2011

It’s a case of mutual assistance at Shoreham Port as the London-based tug ‘MT Muria’, visiting for a major refurbishment in the Dry Dock, will be arriving next week towing the work barge ‘Arnaud Regis’ to undertake a variety of important new works in the vicinity of the Dry Dock and the Port locks.  When the Port’s Engineering Department were asked by GPS Marine to dock MT Muria, they seized the opportunity to have the GPS barge Arnaud Regis towed round from London to carry out several dredging operations that could not be carried out by local contractors’ plant. 

The work barge is fitted with a large excavator that can dig the sea bed at the bottom of the harbour, but it is not fitted with an engine.  So to use the barge at Shoreham, it will have to be towed here from its base on the River Thames in London.  MT Muria is an ideal vessel to tow the barge, so to bring the barge with it when it visits the Dry Dock is no big deal.

Shoreham Port’s Assistant Port Engineer, Keith Wadey, said “We wanted to use the excavator on ‘Arnaud Regis’ to excavate a trench for new cable ducts and to clear debris from close to the Dry Dock and lock entrances, so to be able to combine its visit with the docking of the MT Muria gives an economic solution all round”.  A GPS spokesman commented that the Dry Dock at Shoreham is a uniquely useful facility on the south coast of England for servicing their tugs and they were only too pleased to be able to combine the visit of the tug with some useful work for their work barge.