barge

Haiti-bound cargo ship at Fort Pierce being loaded with construction equipment, supplies

January 25, 2010 / TCPalm.com

The second phase of earthquake relief for Haiti is under way as 200 tons of heavy equipment and building materials are being loaded onto a cargo ship Monday at the Port of Fort Pierce.

image256 Haiti bound cargo ship at Fort Pierce being loaded with construction equipment, supplies Monday at the Fort Pierce Harbor, Samaritan’s Purse International Relief load the 235 foot Caribe Star 1 for Haiti. Atlantic Caribbean Line owns the 235 foot long landing craft barge that is design for ocean going. They are taking over $3 million dollars worth of equipment and supplies to Haiti. Click here to see 16 more photos of the operation »

Fort Pierce, Florida

Once full of supplies for Samaritan’s Purse International Relief, the Caribe Star 1 is expected to set sail Monday night and arrive Friday morning at the dock of a former cement factory near Port-au-Prince.

As the supplies and equipment were being positioned at the port Monday morning, Luther Harrison, director of North American projects for Samaritan’s Purse, said the Boone, N.C.-based charity already had a team of 60 in Haiti when the earthquake hit.

Since then, he said, 19 medical personnel at the Baptist Haiti Mission Hospital in Fermathe southeast of Port-au-Prince have been treating wounds, performing surgery and caring for the sick. Also, 40 Samaritan’s Purse staffers are distributing rolls of plastic for temporary shelter, solar flashlights, blankets, community water filters and water purification packets.

keep reading » (video report)

Tags: · barge, cargo ship, Haiti

Eagle Otome Incident: Tanker Collision Causes Oil Spill in Port Arthur, Texas

By Angel Gonzalez and Naureen Malik
of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

HOUSTON (Dow Jones) – A collision between an oil tanker bound for Exxon Mobil Corp.’s (XOM) Beaumont refinery and an outbound vessel towing barges resulted in a major crude oil spill in the port of Port Arthur, Texas on Saturday.

The U.S. Coast Guard said that the towing vessel and the two barges it was pushing tore a hole on the side of the 807-foot tanker Eagle Otome at about 9:30 a.m. CST, spilling an estimated 450,000 gallons of crude oil, or about 11,000 barrels. The Sabine Neches Waterway is closed to all vessel traffic along Port Arthur’s river front, the Coast Guard said in a press release.

KEEP READING »
NOAA Office of Response: T/V Eagle Otome-Barge Collision (photos and map) »
news video report »
UPDATE: Washington Post / January 24, 2010; 11:10 AM: Coast Guard: Oil spill in Texas waterway Contained »

You may find comments on this collision by professional mariners on gCaptain forum post: Port Arthur -Tanker Eagle Otone holed by barge.

Tags: · barge, oil_spill, oil_tanker, spill_oil, tugs and towing

Crews remove barge from Sandbridge, Va., beach

AP Photo/Steve Helber: A US Coast Guard helicopter prepares to lower two salvage crewmen onto a large barge that broke free is on the beach near the Sandbridge fishing pier in the Sandbridge area of Virginia Beach, Va., Friday, Nov. 13, 2009.

Crews this morning were able to free the 572-ft. barge that ran aground on a Virginia beach Thursday night after it broke free from a tug in severe weather. The barge was on its way rom San Juan, Puerto Rico, to New Jersey when it ran into heavey weather from the remnants of Hurrican Ida. The following was released by Crowley Maritime regarding the barges removal.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – Titan Salvage crews successfully pulled the barge La Princesa off Sandbridge beach at 7:48 a.m. Wednesday.

The crews used two tugs pulling together on the bow and stern of the barge at high tide to free it. The barge, which broke free from the tug Sentry Thursday night, grounded on the beach near Little Island Pier Friday morning.

Coast Guard, Crowley and Titan Salvage personnel worked together to remove the barge from the beach while ensuring the safety of the public and environment. Coast Guard inspectors and a member of the American Bureau of Shipping will survey the vessel to ensure that it is seaworthy. Once the survey team is satisfied, the tug Sentry will tow the barge to its next port of call in Pennsauken, N.J.

11/13 VIDEO : Coast Guard responds to drifting barge off Sandbridge, Va.

11/14 : Salvage company continues preparations to move grounded barge near Sandbridge

Tags: · barge, grounding, incident photos

Photo of The Week – Crowley’s newest heavy-lift deck barge

Crowley welcomed the newest 400-foot by 105-foot, heavy-lift deck barge to its fleet Saturday at a christening celebration at the Gunderson Marine shipyard in Portland, Ore. Micki Harrison, Crowley’s regional human resources manager, did the honors, smashing a bottle of champagne on the side shell of the barge 455 7 and sending it hurtling into the Willamette River.

The barge is the fourth heavy-lift deck barge christened by Crowley this year and the seventh in a series of heavy-lift deck barges slated to be built and put into service by 2013.

Crowley’s heavy-lift 455 series deck barges with 25-foot side shells provide both the capacity and deck strength needed to accommodate larger drilling and production units used for deepwater offshore energy exploration and development. They provide increased deck strength for loads up to 4,200 pounds per square foot.

Tags: · barge

Interesting Ship – Trans Sea Lifter

small ship render Interesting Ship Trans Sea Lifter

The Trans Sea Lifter, or TSL, is a uniquely innovative barge carrying system for short sea shipping that, according to their website, can execute 5 to 7 times the number of round trip voyages per year than a conventional feeder vessel of similar slot capacity.

The vessel is a SWATH type, or Small-Waterplane-Area Twin-Hull, catamaran. The hulls are very slender at the water surface, thus offering a steady ride through waves and allowing the TSL to sustain its speed through rough head seas. The TSL uses a patented ballast-system that enables a quick change in draft to provide the TSL with fully autonomous offshore cargo handing capabilities. Drafts range from:

Voyage Draft – 12 m
Loading Draft – 20 m
Traversing Draft – 7.5 m

The system components are: [Continue Reading →]

Tags: · barge, interesting_ship

Grand Ocean No. 1 – Incident Photo Of The Week

This week’s incident photo comes from a friend who just rounded the Cape Of Good Hope. The photos show the barge Grand Ocean No. 1 on the beach at Jacob’s Bay, South Africa. [Continue Reading →]

Incident Photo (and video) of The Week – Collision at Port of Constanta

Tags: · barge, cape_of_good_hope, incident photos

Incident Photo of The Week – M/V Norwegian Dream (Again)

December 10, 2007 – Upon departure from Montevideo on The Rio de la Plata, the M/V Norwegian Dream fully loaded with passengers on a 23 day cruise, collided with an adrift container barge. Despite valiant efforts the collision could not be avoided.

Both vessels suffered severe damage. The barge lost multiple autos and containers overboard with loss and damage estimated in the millions. The M/V Norwegian Dream suffered a four-by-four foot hole in the bow about five feet above the water line, and was quickly returned to Montevideo for repairs.

As for the passengers, they were offered some compensation for the mishap but continued on after the repairs were made.

More information on this incident can be found at CargoLaw.

Another interesting note… The Norwegian Dream is now a two-time Incident Photo of The Week’er. Check out the first incident HERE.

Tags: · barge, collision, cruise_ship, incident photos, Marine Incidents

Prison Ships

prison barge Prison Ships

On the East River approximately one mile west of SUNY Maritime College sits the Vernon C. Bain a prison barge used to help solve overcrowding problem at Riker’s Island, the world’s largest penal colony. This floating correctional facility is however, not unique. Subtopia tells us:

The deeper I get into it, the more I realize an entire book could probably be written about the subject of floating prisons -– and who knows, maybe in another dream one day I’ll write it –- (there is probably already some magnificent mini opus out there that I have — for at least the time being — overlooked) but for now, let’s just settle for a quick and dirty Googleized survey.

Click HERE for the full article that contains many interesting photos.

(Thanks to BitterEnd for the find)

Tags: · barge, east river, nyc, prison, rikers island

Funicular Railway – Interesting Ship Of The Week

We are starting a new feature here on gCaptain titled “Interesting Ship Of The Week” and the first vessel we’d like to share this unusual barge transporter near Krasnoyarskaya Russia.

Unfortunately we don’t have many details but the pictures tell most of the story. Visit EnglishRussia.com for the high resolution images.

Amazing Canal Barge Transport Vessel - Geared Funicular Railwayl

UPDATE:

Capdiamont offers the details behind this railed giant;

I can’t find the original source he used, but it is a massive electrically powered rack railway that hauls ships, up and over a dam in Russia. At the top it has a turntable so the locomotive can be turned to keep it’s load straight, no matter which way it goes. Think of the top of the dam as the crest. In order to keep the downhill side always downhill, you have to turn it. This one is unusual because the top of the turntable is slanted to keep the locomotive slanted, so the load stays level. Add to all this, is the massive size of everything. This has to be the longest, and heaviest turntable in the world.

If you look at some of the pictures, you can see the gears to mesh in to the rails. That is my reasoning for it to be a rack railway, even though it doesn’t have the traditional center rack, like you would think. (Source: Capdiamont)

We are glad to get the facts behind this story. Honest thanks also goes out to NavaGear for the English lesson in the comments.

Tags: · barge, canal, cold war relic, Interesting, interesting_ship, Maritime, photos, russia, ship

Hebei Spirit Oil Spill – 81,000 Barrel Oil Spill Of South Korea Coast

Click Photo For Details

Bloomberg News tells us:

South Korea’s coast guard sent boats to contain the country’s biggest oil spill in more than a decade after a Hong Kong-registered supertanker collided with a barge.

About 81,000 barrels of crude oil was spilt after a crane on the barge crashed into the Hebei Spirit at 7:15 a.m. local time, Jeong Seon Mun, deputy director of the maritime safety information center at South Korea’s Ministry of Maritime Affairs & Fisheries, said. The ship was anchored 5 miles (8 kilometers) northwest of the Taean peninsula at the time.

The leak is almost a third of the 37,000 tons spilled into Prince William Sound, Alaska, by the Exxon Valdez in 1989, according to data on the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation’s Web site. The Taean Coast Guard deployed 12 patrol boats and 3 accident control vessels, Jeong said today.

“Oil is still spilling,” Jeong said by telephone in Seoul. “The police face difficulty in carrying out the operation because high waves make it hard to contain the spill.” Continue Reading…