Wilson Sons docks gas tanker Forte de Copacabana, owned by Elcano, at its shipyards in Guarujá

Wilson Sons, a leader in port and maritime logistics in Brazil, does first docking of a gas tanker at its Shipyard in Guarujá (São Paulo). The vessel Forte de Copacabana is owned by the coastal shipping specialist Elcano. It is 124-metre long, 17.6-metre wide and weighs 6,940 tons. It is also one of the largest ships to have undergone scheduled maintenance at the business unit located in the port of Santos, which is Latin America’s leading port facility. The operation involved around 300 professionals and had the support of another of the company's business units, the Towage Division.

To ensure first-class service and because it is a gas tanker, it was necessary to secure a Gas-Free certificate before the vessel entered the shipyard's dock, in addition to high standards of docking safety, as required by Brazil’s safety regulations 33 and 34, for entry and execution of work inside the tanks.

Scheduled maintenance of Forte de Copacabana involves structural work and will last about 50 days. The work includes replacement of pipes in general, maintenance of generators, pumps, engines and on-board cranes, as well as cleaning, treatment and painting of tanks and external areas.

Elcano operates Forte de Copacabana on routes in the Northeast, São Luís (MA), Belém (PA) and Paranaguá (PR). Among other cargo, the gas tanker transports LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas, or cooking gas) and propylene.

“In the search for new partners to meet our repair and docking demands, we visited the site and considered Wilson Sons' professionalism and commitment to our scope, taking into account the special features of our gas tankers. The company is serving us according to its quality policy, prioritizing customer service, including some services that, due to the complexity of the vessel, came up at the last minute,” said Darwin Corzo More, ship supervisor at Elcano.

“Docking Elcano’s gas tanker is a milestone in our shipyards, which demonstrates the excellence of the services performed and the technical capacity of our team. We are constantly looking to ensure superior standards of safety and operational efficiency in order to exceed our clients' expectations,” said the executive director of Wilson Sons' shipyard division, Adalberto Souza.

Names of Elcano vessels

Built in 2004, the gas tanker that docked at our shipyards was owned by Metalnave. Initially called Metaltank 5, the vessel was purchased by Elcano, which then renamed it Forte de Copacabana. It usually names its vessels after Spanish medieval castles. However, as the gas tanker is registered in the port of Rio de Janeiro, it chose the name Forte de Copacabana, which is a fortress located at Posto 6 in the South of Rio.

The name of Elcano, established in 1943 in Spain, was given in honour of the Spanish seafarer Juan Sebastián Elcano who, in 1522, was the first to sail around the world. The company operated in the public sector until its privatisation in 1997. Today, the Elcano group is in Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina and in some other countries, managing its own fleet of 19 ships, including gas tankers, oil tankers, ships that carry petroleum derivatives and chemicals, LPG and bulk carriers. Its activity mainly involves international and coastal shipping of raw materials, energy products and chemicals.

New tugboats built at shipyards

In addition to the docking of Forte de Copacabana, the company is building, at its shipyards in Guarujá, a new tug with more sustainable technology, WS Onix. It is part of a building project of six tugs that are the first in Brazil to follow the IMO TIER III standard established by the International Maritime Organization. Their innovative hull design leads to reduced greenhouse gas emissions and an estimated decrease of 14% in the consumption of fossil fuels, supporting the improvement of air quality in the ports where they operate.

Five of these 90-ton bollard pull tugs have been delivered since July 2022 (WS Centaurus, WS Orion, WS Rosalvo, WS Castor and WS Dorado — baptized in March). The new vessels have carried out over 3,500 docking and undocking manoeuvres on the Brazilian coast. WS Onix, in turn, will be launched later this year.