Dr. M. van der Laan enters design contest ‘tug of the future’

In 1997 a naval architect, Dr. M. van der Laan, entered a design contest to come up with the ‘tug of the future’. Dr. Van der Laan’s design featured many exotic systems,

but also the idea to mount the tug’s towing point on a freely rotating ring with the diameter of the tug’s beam and turning around the fixed superstructure of the tug.