River's last shipyard ready to launch tug

The ice-class anchor handling vessel built at Hepworth's Shipyard, Paull, near Hull, will be joining five sister ships in the inland sea, bordered by Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, later this summer.

The southern part of the Caspian Sea holds at least 32 billion barrels of oil reserves and the multi-purpose vessel will help shift rigs from one area to another, as well as shuttling water and other supplies.

The general manager of Hepworth's, Martin Stainton said: "She will be going into the water on July 14, and then she will go to Alexandra Dock to be finished off and complete trials and tests.

"Once we have done that by the end of July she will be going to the Caspian Sea, which I think takes about four or five weeks."

Once the boat gets to Tallinn, near St Petersburg in Russia, she will be taken on as cargo – towed behind a larger vessel – until she reaches her destination.

Mr Stainton said: "When the rigs are in the water they have anchors holding them down. Four tugs pick each of the anchors up and put them on deck and a bigger tug will take the platform in tow.

"It also acts as a supply boat as it will carry a lot of water and fuel on board and can also carry containers."

The tug, which weighs in at 180 tonnes, is the eighth to be completed for Holyhead Towing.

The vessel is the first for some years to have been completely built on the Humber.

The process of building the ship from the laying down of the keel to the end will have taken around 13 months.

The yard is are now looking to build a small tanker for its parent company, Hull-based fuel distributors J.R Rix and Son, which owns a fleet of coaster and tankers.

Mr Stainton said there was an acute shortage of skilled labour, as young people were not prepared to take on the demanding job. He added: "Our workforce is quite aged now and you struggle to find the people you need – proper platers who can read drawings for building ships, shipwrights."

Ships have been built at Paull for centuries.

In 1812 HMS Anson, a 74-gun warship of 1,741 tons was built further down the foreshore – the stocks used can still be seen on the beach by the old slipway.

The ill-fated trawler Solway Harvester, which sank off the Isle of Man six years ago with the loss of all hands, was also built at Paull.