Tandem Towing

A lousy picture this time. But the idea is that you can see that we are not towing the Hermod alone. The belgian tug "President Hubert"is also connected to the Hermod and together we are towing her from Congo to the Netherlands, over a distance of 5000 nautical miles (9200 kilometer) With a towing speed of 7 knots, this will take us exactly 30 days. Our tug is 'leading tug', this means that we are responsible for the safe navigation and all its aspects. It sounds weird, but we do not bother about the President Hubert. On the Retriever, we allways maintain heading, while the President Hubert follows us and keeps distance. That's why she is a little bit astern of us. It is easier for her bridge crew to keep an eye at us. The console on the picture is our aft console, on tugs you look just as often behind than ahead. Besides, manoeuvring will be done most of the time on the aft bridge. That's why we also have manoeuvring console on the aft. You can see that we are almost pulling full ahead and that the top of the winchlever shows a - long time ago - stolen poolball.