Six new pusher-tug boats expected this year

23 January 2019 | © Mer et Marine

The renewal of the port facilities of the French Navy is continuing this year with, in particular, the planned delivery of six new RP 10 pusher-tug boats type.
The " Aigrette " leadership was commissioned last spring, not in a French port but in Dakar. It was carried out by Chantier Merré. This subsidiary of the BMA Group is the holder of this contract, which it won in early 2017 jointly with the CMN and CIB shipyards in Brest.

The program targets the construction of 29 units of the RP 10 type by 2022. The industrial assembly normally provides for the construction of 15 boats at Chantiers Merré and CIB, another subsidiary of BMA, the other 14 to be produced by CMN.
For the time being, the first seven RP 10 pusher-tug boats have been notified by the French Navy.
Of the remaining six after the leadership, a first out of Brest soon, two will be launched in Nort-sur-Erdre and the other three in Cherbourg. All will be delivered by the end of 2019. They will incorporate some changes requested by the owner following the first feedback of the leadership.

Designed by the Merré Shipyard design office, these boats adopt the SEEM 12-800ST design. Built with a steel hull and an aluminum superstructure, the new tugboats in the French Navy are 12 meters long and have a pulling capacity of 10 tons. They are armed by four sailors and can reach the speed of 8 knots.

In addittion to large harbor tugboats, these boats are intended to assist surface vessels and submarines in their docking,.
RP 10 will be located in the naval bases of Brest, Toulon and Cherbourg, as well as in Martinique, New Caledonia, Polynesia, Réunion and Mayotte, as well as in Djibouti and Dakar.