Type 830 tug

The Type 830 sea-going rescue tug is a type of naval auxiliary ship currently in service with the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). Type 830 has received NATO reporting name as Tuozhong class. A total of three have entered services with PLAN.

Type 830 is specifically developed as part of Project 518, the Chinese intercontinental ballistic missile program. Jointly designed by Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the program first begun in 1970. The program manager was Mr. Hu Chuan-zhi (胡传治), who was the key figure made the entire project successful when he did his best to fight off the negative impact caused by the political turmoil in China at the time, namely, the Cultural Revolution. The general designer of the ship was Mr. Hu Zu-De (胡祖德),with the following people as the general designers of various subsystems: the general designer of the turbine of the propulsion system was Mr. Shen Maio-Qing (沈苗青), the general designer of the electrical system was Mr. Bao Yi-Can (鲍奕灿), the general designer of the 4500-hp propeller system was Mr. Ding Xing-Liang (丁星亮), the general designer and deputy general designer of the 35-ton towing winch are Mr. Chen Huan-Ming (陈焕明) and Mr. Yu Yuan-Qin (俞远钦) respectively. Production manager was Mr. Wang Ming-Da (王明达), assisted by Mr. Wu Chang-Fa (吴长发) and Mr. Chen Jia-Xiang (陈家翔), who were put in charge of production of propulsion system and casting respectively. The program was a challenge to China in that the ship itself, as well as most of its subsystem such as the propulsion system were the first time to be indigenously designed and built in China. As a result, after the launch of the first unit in April 1976, and many subsequent sea trials in July and August of the same year, many rework had to be completed to resolve the issued exposed in trials, and it was not until more than a year later in December 1977, was the first ship of this class finally handed over to PLAN.

In addition to regular tugging duties, the Type 830 tug is also designed as a multi-function ship, including fire fighting ship, repair ship, and mooring tender. Type 830 is also capable to function as a missile range instrumentation ship (AGM) to support missile tests, which all ships of this type had successfully performed during the Chinese ballistic missile test in April 1980 conducted in the Pacific Ocean. To fulfill this mission, all three units are equipped with satellite positioning system, acoustic monitoring system and Type 350 system. The type 830 series ships in PLAN service are designated by a combination of two Chinese characters followed by three-digit number. The second Chinese character is Tuo (拖), meaning tug in Chinese, because these ships are tugs. The first Chinese character denotes which fleet the ship is service with, with East (Dong, 东) for East Sea Fleet, North (Bei, 北) for North Sea Fleet, and South (Nan, 南) for South Sea Fleet. However, the pennant numbers may have changed due to the change of Chinese naval ships naming convention.