Anchorage Has its First Dolphin-Class Harbor Tug

The Bering Wind is not home-ported in Anchorage.

Foss subsidiary Cook Inlet Tug & Barge, based in Anchorage, has its first Dolphin Class tug, the hybrid-powered Bering Wind.

Formerly named the Campbell Foss, based in Southern California, the tug was renamed and transferred to Anchorage in November. The tug sailed to Anchorage after several weeks in drydock at Foss Seattle Shipyard, where the hull was upgraded to handle icy Cook Inlet winters.

“The addition of the Bering Wind to our Anchorage based fleet of tugs will improve our current level of service in the Port,” said Ben Stevens, president of Cook Inlet Tug & Barge. “It will also ensure safe port operations can be conducted during the anticipated Port revitalization project which will commence in spring of 2019.”

The tug was one of 10 Dolphin- Class vessels built at Foss Rainier Shipyard. Originally diesel powered, it was converted to a hybrid, diesel-electric powered tug in 2012. It was the company’s first retrofit of a conventional tug to hybrid propulsion, which reduces fuel consumption and emissions.

The Foss tug Carolyn Dorothy, commissioned in 2009 and now in service on the Columbia River, was the world’s first hybrid-powered tug.