MEDIA RELEASE

Friday 16 May 2008

Feisty little tugs strut their stuff for SeePort Week

Ports of Auckland’s two feisty little tugboats - Waipapa and Waka Kume - will be strutting their stuff to entertain Aucklanders during SeePort Week (Saturday 24 May to Sunday 1 June).

The tugs are normally hard at work guiding ships through the commercial shipping lane and nudging them safely into berth at Ports of Auckland’s wharves… but during the Company’s second annual SeePort Week they will be let out to play!

Ports of Auckland skippers will put the tugs through their paces off the end of Princes Wharf during five displays throughout the nine-day event (see the timetable below).

The agility of the ‘bulldozers-on-water’ will be demonstrated with spinning donuts, sideways slides, quick reverses and even the occasional friendly bump!

The tugs, identical seven-year-old ‘terrible twins’, are designed specifically to boss around ships hundreds of times their size for the more than 1700 ship calls the Auckland Port receives each year - but this power and manoeuvrability also comes in handy for ‘Dancing Tug’ displays.

At only 22.5-metres long, they each achieve a bollard pull of 50 tonnes - thanks to twin Caterpillar engines that provide a combined 4400-horsepower, and each boast dual propellers with a 360-degree turning range.

SeePort Week or not, Waipapa and Waka Kume still have their work to do, so Ports of Auckland has allocated special dates and times for the tug displays. Aucklanders are invited to go down to the end of Princes Wharf to see the tugs showing off at midday every weekend-day of SeePort Week - Saturday 24, Sunday 25, Saturday 31 May and Sunday 1 June, and for central city workers there is a midweek display at midday on Wednesday 28 May.

See www.poal.co.nz for more information about SeePort Week 2008, and how you can book a free bus, boat or heritage tour of the Auckland seaport

ENDS

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