Tug
Abeille Liberté
Operator on record: Les Abeilles International, Le Havre, France (Groupe Bourbon)
Photo: Marine nationale · CC BY-SA 3.0 · file
Largest in this registry
#50,666
of 84,014 with a recorded tonnage
Largest tug
#49
of 1,263 of this type with a recorded tonnage
Fleet rank
—
No operator attributed to this ship
In brief
About Abeille Liberté
Abeille Liberté (French pronunciation: [abɛj libɛʁte]) is an emergency tow vessel (salvage tug) based in Cherbourg Harbour, France. It is a sister ship of Abeille Bourbon.
It was built at the Myklebust Verft shipyard in Gursken, Norway, which is part of the Kleven Maritime group. It was delivered in October 2005 and officially inaugurated on 17 November 2005.
Abeille Liberté is owned by Abeilles International, a unit of Groupe Bourbon. The crew is made up of sailors of the merchant marine. It is chartered to the French government and can be called upon by the Maritime Prefect of the English Channel and North Sea at any time.
Vessel particulars
Identification and dimensions
Every value is as recorded in the source. Blanks are values the source does not hold — none is estimated from a sister ship or a class average.
Identification
- IMO number
- 9308699
- IMO check digit
- Valid
- MMSI
- 226265000
- Call sign
- FMDI
- Flag state
- France
- Port of registry
- —
- Vessel class
- Bourbon-class salvage tug
- Status
- in service
- Name recorded in
- mul
Construction
- Type
- Tug
- Builder
- Myklebust Verft
- Yard number
- Launched
- —
- Year built
- 2005
- Designed to carry
- —
- Owner
- GIE Abeille Bourbon, Marseilles, France (Groupe Bourbon)
- Operator on record
- Les Abeilles International, Le Havre, France (Groupe Bourbon)
Measurements
- Gross tonnage
- 3,249
- Net tonnage
- —
- Displacement
- —
- Length overall
- 80.0 m
- Beam
- 16.5 m
- Draft
- 6.0 m
- Service speed
- 19.5 kn
- Deadweight
- 1,811 t
In context
How Abeille Liberté compares
Every figure in this section is a count, a rank or a percentile over vessels actually held in this registry — not over the world fleet, which is larger. Nothing here is estimated.
At 3,249 gross tons, Abeille Liberté is the 50,666th largest of the 84,014 vessels in this registry that report a tonnage. The median across that set is 5,994 GT, so this hull is about 1.8 times smaller than the typical vessel on record here. The largest measures 499,167 GT.
Among the 1,471 tugs held here, it ranks 49th by tonnage — larger than 96% of that group. Their median tonnage is 393 GT, and the largest tenth begin at 1,733 GT. The flag most often flown by this group is United States (239 ships). The yard that appears most often against it is Damen Shipyards Gorinchem, with 62 hulls on record.
France is the country of registry for 517 vessels in this directory, of which Abeille Liberté is the 196th largest by tonnage. The most common class under that flag is vessels this registry holds no type classification for (313 ships), and the median vessel measures 2,161 GT. Browse every ship flagged France.
Narrowing to both dimensions at once, this registry holds 15 tugs flying the France flag, of which 1 is larger by tonnage.
Abeille Liberté was built in 2005, making it 21 years old. It is one of 1,690 hulls in this registry delivered that year, a cohort whose median tonnage is 12,046 GT; within it this ship is the 1,130th largest. Across the whole of the 2000s the registry holds 18,605 vessels, median 9,957 GT. The median build year across the entire registry is 1995.
The registry attributes 50 vessels to Myklebust Verft, with a median tonnage of 3,650 GT, delivered between 1979 and 2022. See the rest of that yard’s output.
At 80.0 m overall, Abeille Liberté is 47.7 m longer than the 32.3 m median for tugs on record, with a beam of 16.5 m and a draft of 6.0 m.
IMO numbers are issued in broadly chronological blocks. Within 500 either side of 9308699 this registry holds 61 other vessels, whose median build year is 2005 and which range from 2004 to 2011. That places this hull’s registration in the same part of the series, consistent with its recorded build year of 2005.
Its IMO number, 9308699, carries its own check digit. The first six digits are weighted seven down to two and summed — 9×7 + 3×6 + 0×5 + 8×4 + 6×3 + 9×2 = 149 — and the last digit of that total, 9, must equal the seventh digit, 9. It does, so this number is well formed.
Nearest by tonnage among tugs
| Ship | Built | Gross tonnage |
|---|---|---|
| Geonisio Barroso | 2004 | 3,360 |
| Virgo | 2004 | 3,342 |
| Haroldo Ramos | 2004 | 3,254 |
| Abeille Liberté (this ship) | 2005 | 3,249 |
| Boka Sherpa | 2005 | 3,239 |
| Fairmount Expedition | 2007 | 3,239 |
| Fairmount Summit | 2005 | 3,239 |
Class
Sister ships in the Bourbon-class salvage tug class
| Ship | IMO | Flag | Built | Gross tonnage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abeille Bretagne | 9308687 | France | 2005 | 3,249 |
| El Mousif | 9587556 | Algeria | — | — |
Provenance
Where this page comes from
Vessel recordWikidata, released under CC0, keyed on this ship’s IMO number.
Written summaryQuoted from Abeille Liberté on English Wikipedia, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0.
PhotographBy Marine nationale, reused under CC BY-SA 3.0.