Bollard

Pull Calculations for Towing Operations – an

Introduction
Part I – Calculating the required Bollard Pull (BP)
(Click here for Part II)
SECTION A – INTRODUCTION
Bollard Pull calculation is one of the most frequent calculations performed in marine
towing operations.
Towing operations involve the pulling of a vessel (it can be a barge, ship or an offshore
structure) using another vessel (usually a tug).
From a very basic point of view, we can draw the following conclusions regarding
towing
 A bigger vessel will require higher force for towing
 The harsher the environment, the more will be the towing force required
 The efficiency of the tug deployed for towing will also affect the towing operation
When selecting and deploying tugs for towing operations, we would like to know a few
things before we make a final decision:
 How big a tug should I select for safely towing the vessel?
 How much maximum speed will I be able to make with the tug(s) I selected?
Each of the above questions merits a detailed explanation, and we will cover each of
them separately. In this Article, we will cover the first question – how big a tug is
required for safe towing of a vessel?
First, let’s clear some basic concepts. Please note that this article covers only the
scenario of head sea towing.
SECTION B – BASIC CONCEPTS
Concept – Bollard Pull of a Tug

The capacity of tugs is measured by their rated Bollard Pull. The Bollard Pull of a tug is
the force it exerts at zero forward speed, in calm water conditions, with the engine
working at its full power (100% MCR). Continuous Bollard Pull (CBP) is measured by a
test as the average bollard pull measured at a length of time (say 10 minutes), while
Maximum Bollard Pull is the highest bollard pull measured during the test.

Concept – Towing Efficiency and available pulling force at zero speed

The tug has an efficiency of its own when towing the vessel in sea. It depends on the
environment of the tow, and on size of the vessel towed.
If the bollard pull of a tug is denoted by BP, and its towing efficiency is denoted by ƞ,
then the total available pulling force from the tug will be
Available pulling force of the tug = Bollard Pull of the tug x Towing efficiency
Available Pulling force of the tug = BP x ƞ
Concept – Required Towing Force
How do we relate the Bollard Pull of the tug to the vessel being towed?
Basically, the vessel being towed will experience environmental forces of wind, wave
and current in the sea. Together, these forces constitute the ‘Towing force’. Let’s denote
it by FTOT
 For the tug to be able to pull the vessel, the available pulling force of the Tug must be
greater than the total force on the vessel.
 BP x ƞ > FTOT
 BP > FTOT/ ƞ
Thus the Bollard Pull of the tug should be more than FTOT/ ƞ. This is called the Required
Bollard Pull, and this is what we seek to calculate. Next we will see how the towing
force can be calculated.
Concept – Environmental forces
The required Towing force is defined as the force which is required to HOLD the vessel
in sea under certain environmental conditions of wind, wave and current.

Total Towing Force, FTOT = Wind Force + Wave force + Current force
Please note that the towing force is the required force for HOLDING the vessel (also
called STALL condition), and not for towing it.
Now, what are these environmental conditions and where do we get them from?
When towed in the sea, a vessel will experience forces of wind, wave and current. To
HOLD the vessel in the given environment, we need to overcome these forces.
 Wind force acts on the part of the vessel above waterline and exposed to wind
 Current force acts on the underwater portion of the vessel
 Wave forces – the waves coming on to the vessel add to the resistance force on the
vessel
Wind forces depend on the wind speed, current forces depend on the current speed and
Wave forces depend on the (significant) height of waves.
Industry standards like DNVGL Guidelines for Marine Transportation (earlier ND-0030,
now superseded by DNVGL-ST-N001) prescribe the standard wind, wave and current
parameters to be used for bollard pull calculations, depending on condition under
which the towing is being performed.
ND-0030 requires that the bollard pull of the tug should be sufficient to HOLD the
towed vessel in the environment stated below:
Standard Criteria – For Open Ocean tows, following environmental parameters are
prescribed as per ND-0030
 Wind Speed – 20 m/s (roughly 40 knots)
 Current speed – 0.5 m/s (roughly 1 knot)
 Significant Wave Height – 5 meters
For benign weather areas, the following criteria are prescribed as per ND0030
 Wind Speed – 15 m/s (roughly 30 knots)
 Current speed – 0.5 m/s (roughly 1 knot)
 Significant Wave Height – 2 meters
A question naturally arises – how do we know if the tow is an open ocean tow or a
benign tow? For this we need to study the environment of the route of the tow, and get
the historical environment data of the route. We can get it from environment data
provider like Metocean. In some cases, data from Nautical charts is also acceptable
(depends on the discretion of Marine Warranty Surveyor). The wind speed, wave height
and current speed should be obtained for the specific time of the year when the tow is
expected to take place. For example, if the towing operation is expected in May +/- 2
months, then the environment data from March till July should be referenced. The most
extreme values for the period should be utilized.
From the environment data, we can decide whether it is an open ocean tow or a benign
tow. Basically, if anywhere along the route a wave of (significant) height more than 2
meters is expected, then the Open Ocean criteria is to be used. If everywhere along the
route, waves of significant wave height less than 2 meters are expected, then the
environment data must be submitted to the Warranty Surveyor and exemption obtained
for using the ‘benign’ sea state case before proceeding with Bollard Pull calculations.

SECTION C – CALCULATION STEPS

Now we can delineate the steps for performing Required Bollard Pull calculations for
towing a vessel as follows:
 Step 1 – Determine the environmental parameters (Open Ocean or Benign)
 Step 2 – Calculate the Wind, Wave and Current forces on the vessel
 Step 3 – Add up the wind, wave and current forces to find the total force on the
vessel, FTOT
 Step 4 – Get the towing efficiency of the tug, ƞ
 Step 5 – Calculate the minimum required Bollard Pull (BP) using the formula
Minimum Required BP > FTOT/ ƞ
SECTION D – CALCULATION METHODS IN DETAIL

Wind forces
Wind forces are the forces on the part of the vessel above the waterline which is
exposed to winds.
For calculating wind force, besides the wind speed and air density, we need the
Transverse wind-exposed sectional area of the vessel (also called windage area)
Calculating the transverse windage area
When the vessel is being towed forward, then the transverse section of the vessel faces
the winds head on.
Some points to keep in mind when calculating this transverse windage area are:
 There are two parts of the windage area – the area contributed by the part of the
vessel’s hull above water, and the area contributed by items on the deck, i.e., Cargo,
Deck structures and Accommodation
 The area contributed by the hull can be obtained from the midship section
dimensions/drawing
 The area contributed by above-deck items can be calculated as the area of the silhouette
of the above deck items.
 Cargo height coefficient – The speed of wind varies with the height above the water
surface. For zones of the cargo which are higher, a cargo height coefficient needs to be
additionally applied to take into account the higher wind speeds experienced by higher
zones of the cargo. Cargo height coefficients are provided in ABS MODU Rules (see
below)

 Cargo shape coefficient – The wind force experienced by the cargo also depends on the
shape of the cargo. For example, a box shaped cargo will experience higher forces than
cargo which is cylindrical in shape (with the cylindrical face exposed to wind). To take
into account the effect of cargo shape on wind force, a cargo shape coefficient needs to
be incorporated in the windage area calculations. Cargo shape coefficients for typical
cargo shapes are provided in ABS MODU Rules (see below)
 The final windage area should incorporate the height and shape coefficients

Sketch showing the Transverse Windage Area and Transverse Underwater Areas of a simple Barge
The wind force is calculated from the air density, wind speed and the transverse
windage area using standard formula
Force = ½ x air density x (wind speed)2 x Transverse Windage Area
Current forces
The current forces are basically, the forces experienced by the underwater part of the
hull.
The underwater part of the hull experiences what is called as ‘calm water resistance’.
This is the resistance the ship experiences when it is moving in water without waves.
In the STALL scenario when the tow is not moving, the vessel is actually static, but the
current moving against the vessel creates the same effect as the vessel moving with the
speed of the current in calm water. Thus, the resistance experienced by the vessel
because of current is equivalent to the resistance which the vessel will experience in
calm water when moving at the speed of the current.
The Calm Water Resistance has many components, and is a complicated calculation.
Calm water resistance of a ship can be calculated using
 Empirical methods like Holtrop-Mennen method, Taylor’s method etc. Each method is
applicable to certain ship types
 Direct Model Tests
 Computer simulation
Barges
For barges, some studies have been done to develop empirical methods of calculating
resistance. Some of them are
 Bureau Veritas – Towage at Sea of Vessels or Floating Units
 Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) Paper 3320 – Resistance of Offshore Barges and
Required Horsepower
If the vessel is a barge, sometimes a simplification is adopted, subject to acceptance by
MWS. Similar to the calculation of transverse wind force, the current force can also be
calculated from the transverse underwater area.
Calculation of transverse underwater hull area is pretty simple in case of barges, which
generally have a rectangular section shape. If the width of the Barge is B, and its draft is
T, then the underwater transverse section area is simply B x T. If there are cuts around
the bilge of the barge, these can be deducted from the area. The current force is finally
calculated using the standard formula
Current force = ½ x water density x (current speed)2 x underwater transverse section
area
Ships
For ships, an elaborate method (e.g., Holtrop-Mennen method) to calculate calm water
resistance is usually recommended to get more accurate current force.
Wave forces
The current force calculated above is actually the force which the vessel will experience
in calm water. However, the sea is a dynamic environment because of waves which the
vessel encounters. These waves add to the forces on the vessel and are these forces are
called as ‘Added Wave Resistance’ or the ‘wave drift force’.
Wave drift force depends on the dimensions of the vessel, and its shape. The method for
calculation of added wave resistance is provided in DNV-RP-H103 Modelling and
Analysis of Marine Operations Sec 7.2.6 (see below extract).

Source: DNV‐RP‐H103 Modelling and Analysis of Marine Operations

Towing Efficiency
How do we get towing efficiency?
 The tug’s efficiency is affected by many factors, like, size of tug, the harshness of
environment, and the towing speed. ND-0030 provides a table to calculate the towing
efficiency of the Tug. If the tug’s Continuous Bollard Pull is BP, then the table provides
following values for the Towing efficiency

Source: ND‐0030 Guidelines for Marine Transportations

Calculation of Required Bollard Pull
Now that we have the wind, wave and current forces, we can calculate the total
resistance force on the vessel as
FTOT = FWIND + FWAVE + FCURRENT
Then the required Bollard Pull can be calculated as
Required BP = FTOT/ƞ
The continuous bollard pull of tug must be higher than the Required BP for the tug to be
suitable for towing.
SECTION E – The role of Marine Warranty Surveyor (MWS)
The Marine Warranty Surveyor has a very critical role in towing operations. His role
includes, but is not limited to
 Survey of vessel and tug for towing equipment and general condition
 Approval and acceptance of environmental conditions/weather data
 Review of the bollard pull calculations
 Witness and review of Bollard Pull tests, if required to be performed
 Review and approval of the towing plan
The towing operator has to work closely with the MWS by providing all documents and
calculations on time and getting MWS approvals prior to the operation. The potential
areas of contention with the MWS might be the following, and the towing operator
should carefully prepare the supporting documents to get MWS approval in time
 Disagreement over environmental criteria adopted
 Non-willingness of MWS to grant benign weather criteria
 Disagreement over the method adopted for Bollard Pull calculation
 Disagreement over the condition of the tug
 Insistence to carry out a Bollard Pull test to confirm the rating of the tug
While the above are not regular occurrences, it is advisable for the towing operator to
be proactive in treading these issues to avoid delays and surprises during the operation.
That leads to the conclusion of this Part – I. In Part – II we will discuss the method of
calculating the maximum feasible towing speed for a given environment.

References
1. DNV RP-H103 Modelling and Analysis of Marine Operations
2. ABS, 2016, Rules for Building and Classing Mobile Offshore Drilling Units, Part 3 Chapter
1,Section 3, ‘Environmental Loadings’, p.11.
3. An Approximate Power Prediction Method, J.Holtrop and G.G.J.Mennen, 1982
4. BV – Towage at Sea of Vessels or Floating Units
5. OTC 3220, Vol 4, Resistance of Offshore Barges and Required Tug Horsepower
 

Bollard Pull Calculations for Towing Operations

Part II – Finding out the maximum feasible tow speed

Introduction
This is Part – II of the two part article on Bollard Pull calculations. In the Part I we saw
how to calculate the required Bollard Pull to select a tug. At this stage, we have
accomplished the following
 Calculated the required Bollard Pull (BP) to tow the vessel (barge or ship)
 Selected the tug based on the required Bollard Pull
In this part we will see how we can estimate the maximum safe towing speed for the
vessel to ply in a given sea state. Before we get to the actual methodology, let’s look at
the concept of Available Pull of the tug at non-zero speed.
Concept – Available pull of the tug at non zero‐speed
By now we have selected the tug, and it has its rated bollard pull, which is its maximum
pulling force at zero forward speed. Let’s call it BPmax. As we saw in Part I, this
BPmax should be more than the total required towing force for the STALL condition.
However, the actual towing scenario (called the TOW condition) is different in two ways
 First, the tug is not static but towing the vessel forward at a non-zero speed. When the
tug moves forward, part of the tug’s power is used in overcoming the resistance of the tug
 itself, and the rest is actually available to tow the vessel. Let’s say, if Ftug is the force which
the tug utilizes for itself, then the available power for towing (BPavailable) will be

BPavailable = BPmax – Ftug

At zero speed, Ftug is zero, and whole BPmax is available for the holding the towed vessel.
At the maximum free-running speed of the tug, the whole BPmax is utilized for the tug’s
own resistance, and the available power for towing is zero. Thus, if we plot the available
towing power of the tug vs speed, we will get a curve like below. The actual curve is not
exactly a straight line, but we will assume a straight line to keep things simple (it also
leads to more conservative results).

In the example above, we can see that at 6 knots towing speed, the maximum available
power for towing is only 40% of the BPmax, while 60% goes to overcome the tug’s own
resistance
 Second, the environment under which towing is performed is not the same as the STALL
environment scenario. Usually, the STALL sea state is a harsher one in which the
requirement is to HOLD the tow, and not move it forward. The towing will be done is a
comparatively milder environment.
Our objective is to find out the maximum speed which the tug can make in a given
environment.
Methodology
The methodology which we are going to follow for the above exercise is outlined below
 Step 1 – Get the environmental parameters under which the towing will be done
 Step 2 – Get the tug particulars
 Bollard Pull at 100% and 85% MCR or other MCR values as required
 Tug maximum forward free run speed
 Step 3 – Plot the tug performance curves for different MCR values
 Step 4 – Calculate the total environmental forces (on the towed vessel) for different speed
of towing, beginning from zero speed up to the maximum tug speed
 Step 5 – Plot the curve of Total Environmental force (FTOT) vs towing speed on the same
graph as the tug performance curve.
 Step 6 – The intersection of the curves for total environmental force and tug performance
will give the limiting towing speed
Let’s now see each step in detail

Step 1 – Get the environmental parameters

The environmental parameters for towing in this case are the maximum wind, current
and wave in which the towing operator proposes to tow the vessel. The towing operator
has to advise the safe limiting environment in which she/he plans to tow. For example,
the operator may decide that a wind of 20 knots, wave of 3 m and current of 1 knots is
the limiting environment in which she/he plans to tow the vessel. The operator would
like to know the maximum speed she/he can make with this limiting environment.
Step 2 – Get the tug particulars
We saw that the available power for towing keeps reducing with speed of tow. The
performance curve of the tug is an important input for determining the available power.
For plotting the performance curve, we need the following:
 The free running maximum speed of the tug – this is obtained from the tug’s specifications
sheet
 The Bollard Pull of the tug at 100% MCR and 85% MCR. Usually the tug will be operated
at 85% MCR. 100% MCR is more significant for the STALL condition to calculate the
maximum required Bollard Pull. If the tug is operating at some other MCR value, then the
Bollard Pull for that value should also be obtained.
Step 3 – Plot the tug performance curve
Once we have the above data, we can plot the tug performance curves for 100% & 85%
MCR (or any other value) using the method described in Section 2.
Step 4 – Calculate the total environmental forces for different tow speeds
 Wind and current forces are calculated using standard formulas described in Part I.
 The wind and current forces will keep increasing as the tow speed increases. This is
because the effective (or relative) wind/current speed against the vessel increases as the
vessel moves forward. If the speed of the tug is Vtow, and speed of the wind is Vwind, then
the effective wind speed is
Veffective = Vtow + Vwind
The wind force will have to be calculated for the above effective speed. Same holds true
for the current force
 The wave force is calculated based on DNV-RP-H103 Sec 7.2.6. The wave force also
increases with the towing speed and is calculated in accordance with the relevant
sections of DNV.
 Once we have the wind, wave and current forces, we calculate the total environmental
force, FTOW by adding them up. FTOW is calculated for different tow speeds from zero to
maximum tug speed.
We can do the calculations and present them in a spreadsheet format. Once such
calculation table is presented below (speed means towing speed)

Step 5 – Plot FTOT against tug speed on the same plot as for the tug performance
curve.
The curve will then look something like the below (the tug’s bollard pull is 150 MT)

Step 6 – Finding the limiting towing speed

The intersection of the curves for total environmental force and tug performance will give
the limiting towing speed. In the above plot, the point ‘X’ is the intersection of the two
curves. We can see that at all points to the left of the point ‘X’ (i.e., speeds less than 2.9
 knots marked by blue zone), the available towing pull of the tug exceeds the required
towing force, thus making the towing feasible. However, to the right of point ‘X’ (the red
zone), the available tug power is less than the towing force required and towing is not
feasible. Thus the maximum towing speed feasible for this case is 2.9 knots.
Thus we saw how the maximum feasible towing speed can be calculated for towing a
vessel under a given environment. This exercise becomes useful when the Client or MWS
requires that a minimum towing speed be achieved and demonstrated through
calculations.
That brings us to the end of this two-part article on Bollard Pull. We hope it has been
useful to our readers. Do let us know your thoughts in the comment section. Happy
Towing!!

References
1. DNV RP-H103 Modelling and Analysis of Marine Operations
2. ABS, 2016, Rules for Building and Classing Mobile Offshore Drilling Units, Part 3 Chapter
1,Section 3, ‘Environmental Loadings’, p.11.
3. An Approximate Power Prediction Method, J.Holtrop and G.G.J.Mennen, 1982
4. BV – Towage at Sea of Vessels or Floating Units
5. OTC 3220, Vol 4, Resistance of Offshore Barges and Required Tug Horsepower
