Emergency towage exercise

20 Mar 2023 / Brisbane, Australia

Tug operator Svitzer Australia has advised that there may be some disruption to shipping at Brisbane due to an emergency towage exercise on 30 and 31 March.

Harbour towage availability will be impacted during this time, as Svitzer will test its equipment, crew and capability and to simulate a live, fully-manned exercise with a recovery tug and another tug acting as a ‘dead ship’ in and around the port area.

This is part of its ongoing commitment to safety and ensuring their obligations to provide emergency response capability. The emergency response training is a requirement for providing Emergency Towage Contract (ETC) responsibilities to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA).

Due to the training and live simulation exercise, for periods of time from 07:00 Thursday 30 March to 07:00 Saturday 1 April, Svitzer’s harbour towage availability may be limited to two tugs (and corresponding crew allocations) in harbour towage only. While efforts will be made to minimise the impact as much as possible, some disruptions may be unavoidable for any late movement or booking requests for harbour towage.

All shipping providers and agents are advised to plan related movements in advance as much as practical.

Any deep draft or oversize vessels calling at Brisbane are recommended to send their booking intentions as early as possible into Brisbane VTS and the Svitzer Australia East Coast Operations team (Svitzer’s controllers and control team based in Newcastle). Svitzer's South Queensland controllers can be contacted on: 1800 453 938 or via email: [email protected] for operational enquiries.

Emergency response capability is an essential service Svitzer provides to AMSA and the Australian shipping community to ensure our maritime community stays safe. Svitzer activated emergency response support to customers out of Brisbane eight times during 2022.

For further details and updates, as well as information about operations in Australia, contact GAC Australia at [email protected]

If quoting any content from Hot Port News, please cite GAC Hot Port News as the source.