Sanmar of Türkiye Delivers Fifth Tug to Bulgaria's VTC

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On October 30, Turkish shipyard Sanmar Shipyards delivered the newly built harbor tug KASTRITSI to Bulgarian tug operator VTC S.A. The vessel will join VTC's fleet at the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Varna, undertaking harbor towage and offshore operations. This is the fifth tug Sanmar has delivered to VTC since the company's founding in 2003.

KASTRITSI is based on the RApport 2500 design by Robert Allan of Canada and is a shallow-draft azimuth stern drive (ASD) tug. The vessel has an overall length of 25.2 meters, a beam of 12 meters, a maximum draft of 4.2 meters, a forward bollard pull of over 50 tonnes, a maximum speed of 12 knots, FiFi-1 firefighting capability, and accommodation for 6 crew members. The design is intended for confined and shallow waterways, with a partially raised forecastle and an elevated wheelhouse to maintain visibility when handling high-freeboard barges. KASTRITSI enters the fleet with a length of 25.2 meters and a bollard pull of over 50 tonnes, approximately 1.85 times that of VTC's largest tug in service, giving VTC RApport 2500-class towing capability for the first time rather than a same-scale addition to its existing smaller twin-screw tugs.

VTC provides harbor towage, berthing and unberthing, coastal and offshore towage, and emergency response services at the ports of Varna and Balchik. With the new vessel in service, VTC's towage operations at the Port of Varna can be undertaken by an ASD tug with FiFi-1 firefighting capability, while the original three twin-screw tugs from 2003 and the 2018-built TICHA continue as the fleet's baseline capacity.

The delivery of KASTRITSI falls within Sanmar's dense 2026 delivery schedule. So far in 2026, Sanmar has delivered its 18th tug to SAAM Towage, four electric tugs to BOTAŞ, and its seventh tug to Germany's H. Schramm, and completed five deliveries within one week in July. What VTC has received this time is a single-vessel order for the Bulgarian market within this delivery sequence, not involving batch delivery.