PIRIOU Wins a Contract to Build 20 Tugs for the French Navy

The French Defence Procurement Agency -DGA- notified PIRIOU on April 30th and awarded the contract to supply a series of twenty 30 tonnes tugs including 15 harbour tugs -RP30- and 5 harbour and coastal tugs -RPC30- involving a firm order for four units and several optional orders including the related maintenance services.

CHANTIERS PIRIOU -holder of the contract- will build the vessels in the site of Concarneau (Brittany, France) and will deal with its joint venture partner KERSHIP for project management. In Service Support (ISS) will be provided by PIRIOU NAVAL SERVICES- the group subsidiary already in charge for the SSF -French Fleet Management Department- of the ISS of the Brest naval base fleet through a contract which was renewed in 2019.

These future tugs will be assigned to the naval bases in the French cities of Toulon, Brest, Cherbourg, Fort de France and Papeete. They will have to take charge and support surface vessels and submarines, especially for berthing manoeuvres. They will be equipped with a 600 m3/h Fi-Fi system.

Following this notification, the PIRIOU group will start building the first unit before the end of 2020 for a delivery during the summer 2022, and will deliver four units per year.

Vincent FAUJOUR, PIRIOU group CEO says: ‘This new order shows how PIRIOU can offer a global service through its different subsidiaries: design, building and maintenance. This programme exactly meets our know-how and strategy: military tugs deployed all over the French territories in the world. We are very satisfied with being notified this contract when emerging from this lockdown period during which the PIRIOU group has not effectively
completely stopped its activities’.

The RP30 tug design is adapted to fit the special requirements of the French Navy and the requirements of the new vessels of its fleet. The bollard pull will reach 35 tonnes. The main innovations and abilities of the vessel are the following:

• its manoeuvrability
• its power management by DC bus powering the bow thruster, the winches and the FI-FI pumps
• ???????Wheelhouse ergonomics which was specifically developed for the DGA through a virtual model
• ???????Two models -harbour and coastal- offered