S.A. John Ross

S.A. John Ross

History
South Africa
Owner	SAF Marine Pentow Marine Smit Pentow Smit Dudula
Builder	John Brown & Hamer Ltd.
Yard number	29
Laid down	March 18, 1974
Launched	March 25, 1975
Acquired	November 8, 1976
Homeport	Cape Town
Identification	IMO number: 7385215 MMSI number: 601524000
Status	Active
General characteristics
Type	Salvage tug
Tonnage	2,918 GT tbc NT 2,146 DWT
Length	94.65 m (310 ft 6 in)
Beam	15.85 m (52 ft 0 in)
Draught	7.52 m (24 ft 8 in)
Depth	8.6 m (28 ft 3 in)
Propulsion	Main engines: 2 x 16 cyl. Mirrlees-Blackstone KVMR16 (total 19,200 bhp (14,300 kW)) Bow thruster: 1 × 800 kW (1,073 hp)
Speed	approx. 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph)
Crew	tbc

S.A. John Ross (also known as John Ross, SA Amandla, Smit Amandla and Iconic 09) along with her sister ship S.A. Wolraad Woltemade, was one of a pair of South African ocean-going salvage tugs built in the late 1970s in order to support passage of redirected (in particular supertankers) traffic around the Cape of Good Hope as a result of the closure of the Suez Canal following the Six-Day War.

For a time after their construction, the tugs held the record for the most powerful marine salvage vessels of their type in the world.^[1] The S.A. John Ross was named after the Scotsman Charles Maclean, who during his exploits during the Anglo-Zulu war became known as "John Ross".