Full speed ahead – with a fleet of tugs and integrity

“Shipping has changed dramatically since our establishment, mainly due to the introduction of containers. We have always adapted with the times and continually offered our customers tailor-made solutions. One thing that hasn’t changed is our promise to offer our services at a fair price, with integrity and honesty. Our name is a reflection of this,” stated Holger Schwesig, Managing Director, Fairplay Towage Group.

This philosophy has served the company well over the past 117 years. Since the merger of Fairplay Towage and Bugsier in 2017, the company now has bases in 29 European ports, including Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Bremen, Bremerhaven, Brake, Nordenham, Wilhelmshaven, Rostock, Wismar and Mukran. The group is also represented in the Polish ports of Gdynia, Świnoujście and Szczecin. Fairplay Towage offers its maritime services worldwide from these ports and numerous other locations with a total of 105 tugboats, which are suitable for a wide range of requirements thanks to their high performance propulsion systems of up to 5,500 kilowatts and a bollard pull of up to 105 tonnes.

One provider, abundant solutions

The backbone of the group is tugboat assistance, offshore towage, long-distance towing and coastal protection. The tugboat assistance service involves ships of all kinds – from container ships to bulk carriers and supertankers – being safely manoeuvred in the port with one or more tugboats, whilst the offshore towage service includes oil rig manoeuvre and the towing of docks and hoisting platforms for offshore wind energy, amongst other things. “Long-distance towing assignments could even involve transporting a ship from the Bahamas to Bremerhaven,” explained Schwesig. The managing director is particularly proud that, as a founding member of the German association of tug and salvage operators, Fairplay is currently providing the federal government with the three special tugboats – the “Baltic”, “Fairplay 35” and “Nordic” – to provide emergency assistance and prevent damage to the environment.

The “Vilm” is one of five oil-fighting vessels operated by the Fairplay Towage Group on behalf of the German government and coastal federal states.

In addition to these four main pillars, Fairplay Towage Group’s services also include pontoon transport, salvage operations, mooring, as well as classic shipyard work, ship repairs and special steel construction – with the latter three services being offered at the Theodor Buschmann shipyard in Hamburg. “Last but not least, our activities are rounded off by the prevention of pollution incidents. We have been managing several oil-fighting vessels on behalf of the German government and coastal German states for over 20 years. These currently include five vessels, namely the Knectsand, Vilm, Mposs, Kiel and Westensee,” said Schwesig.

A plea for better port cooperation

Reflecting on the developments of the past two-and-a-half years, he summarised: “So far, the pandemic and war in Ukraine have not had a major impact on our daily operations. What has changed is the fact that ships are entering ports more irregularly. But up to now we have always been flexible enough to adapt to these requirements.” That said, this kind of flexibility is something that Schwesig feels is lacking when it comes to the cooperation between German seaports. “Germany is lacking an overall strategy to be better positioned in relation to international competition. The key here is to throw old animosity and pride overboard and to work together on solutions that extend beyond individual port boundaries. If we were to cooperate more closely with one another, there would be a much higher chance of competing with the likes of Rotterdam and Antwerp, for example, whose efficiency and collaboration with other ports is, in my opinion, impressive.”