A DOCK THAT ‘TUGS’ AT YOUR HEARTSTRINGS
Located 40 km west of Tangier in Morocco, Tanger Med is a relatively new commercial port benefitting from a strategic position in the Strait of Gibraltar. The first extension, Tanger Med 1, has been in operation since 2007, and the second extension, Tanger Med 2, began operating in 2019. The port is the largest in Africa and the Mediterranean in terms of container capacity, surpassing long-established counterparts such as Durban, Mombasa, Algeciras, Valencia, and Gioia.
In 2018, Svitzer was awarded a 20-year concession to provide terminal towage services in Tanger Med 2. Starting with four tugs, the concession will call for a total of nine vessels by the end of the contract. Tanger Med enlisted SF Marina and local partner Marina System Ibérica S.L. to design and manufacture a 70-metre-long floating dock to accommodate the four 29-metre Svitzer tugs. The dock, installed in 2019, is 10 metres wide and 2.7 metres high, and is made up of ten 7-metre-long pontoons that are connected in parallel. With their weight and low centre of gravity, the pontoons are not only extremely stable, they are also designed to withstand many years of heavy use. The pontoons are anchored using SeaFlex anchors and elastic mooring lines.
