Barge Systems News

Robert (Bob) Hill of Ocean Tug & Barge Engineering Corp., of Milford, MA has specialized in the design of AT/B’s for many years. As probably the world's most experienced designer of large articulated tug/barge (AT/B) systems, Hill’s success comes, in part, from a willingness to innovate. Ocean Tug & Barge Engineering Corporation and Robert Hill are the co-inventors of the Intercon Connection System. In a nutshell, his firm has had a hand in over 70% of the operational AT/B’s in service in America – including, 80% of those built or converted since 1994.

HydroComp, Inc. was established in 1984 to provide powering analysis services to naval architects and shipbuilders. Best known for its award-winning NavCad software, HydroComp is regarded as the premier source for performance prediction software, consulting, and knowledge. The firm’s offerings include NavCad, NavCad Premium, PropCad, PropCad Premium, PropElements, PropExpert, SwiftCraft, and SwiftTrial software. The firm has 8 employees. Sometimes the least sophisticated vehicle is the hardest to analyze. With respect to resistance, this is definitely the case with barges.

Avalon Freight Services co-founded by Greg and Tim Bombard and Harley Franco, will debut freight service on Friday, April 1, 2016. Currently scheduled to operate a minimum of five days a week, year round, the company will transport freight from Berth 95 in San Pedro and the Pebbly Beach freight facility in Avalon. In addition to scouring the country seeking the best Landing Craft and Tug and Barge systems, the new company will provide the safest, fastest, quietest, most efficient…

Some veteran Mississippi pushboats and barges have been transported to South America for second careers. However, conditions on a great river like the Paraguay-Paraná are different. It has sharp bends, shallow stretches, and includesremote reachestotally lacking in infrastructure. Building on extensive experience designing for the shallow rivers of Canada's frontiernorthland, Robert Allan Ltd., Naval Architects from Vancouver, BC have taken on the challenge of creating a new generation of specialized tug and barge systems to suit these demanding environments. A waterway logistics corporation, Hidrovias do Brasil, was the firm's first South American client to commission new purpose-built shallow draft vessels.

Everyone knows everyone else's business in this industry, or at least they think they do, and certainly try to. Who owns this or is buying that is information as eagerly sought for tactical insight as it is for gossip, and is equally protected by those in the know. The ex-S/R Everett, lately known as the Lincoln Sea, has been a buzz on New York harbor ever since the newswires hummed with reports that K-Sea had bought the Mobil-built boat. But that was back in January. If it's true, the scuttlebutt asked, how come the winter has passed, the spring has passed, and the boat's still painted blue - not the white superstructure, green decks, tan stacks, and red trim of K-Sea?

(This is Part I of a two-part series on the Articulated Tug Barge from Robert P. Hill. The American coastwise shipping business has grown in a way that differs from many other nations. The high cost of manning and building ships has led over the years to a coastwise transportation network dominated by tugs and barges. • Weather delays caused by the uncertainties of towing of a barge in heavy weather, especially a barge carrying petroleum and chemical products, are a constant problem. Towing a large barge in heavy seas just off the coast is a risky business. The possibility of parted towlines, (not to mention the reality in several hundred cases) and lost, drifting barges, has haunted tug and barge operators - as well as the customers they serve - for years.

Just one look at the tug Sea Reliance and its companion barge 550-1 shows that Marine Transport Corp., a Crowley Maritime Corporation company, spared no effort to make this ATB (articulated tug barge) and barge a state-of-the-art workboat. Its twin Caterpillar 12-cylinder diesel engines put out a combined total of 9,280 hp allowing for a sustained speed of 12-knots with a full load of 155,000 barrels of petroleum. The barge's cargo-handling systems, with inert gas blanketing and hydraulics, are the equal of most tankers. The technology is matched only by the accommodations and amenities, including single staterooms and private showers, which every crewmember greatly appreciates.

Clayton Cook's article on the U.S. shipbuilding market was a thoughtful review, as one would expect from such a knowledgeable source whose contribution and commitment to the marine sector is well known. His review of the non-contiguous liner trades characterized the Puerto Rico fleet as "antique," and accurate description of the self-propelled vessels serving the trade. That section, however, did not mention the tug/barges now serving the Puerto Rico lane. Today the majority of the marine freight moving between the mainland and Puerto Rico moves on tug/barge systems. These tug/barge systems are newer than the self-propelled vessels. In our own case, the weighed average age of our fleet is some six years or one-fifth that of the self-propelled vessels in the trade.

Even on New York harbor, where the tugs range from burly to brutish, K-Sea's biggest are easy to pick out. Standing as tall as a seven-story house, they're the white ones. Their red trim makes them all the more conspicuous, like huge decorated lateens on the horizon as they move monster barges from the Kills. For giants like these, of course, harbor chores like bunkering would be almost recreational, something to keep them exercised between the coastal jaunts for which they're designed - and for which their owners are expanding. K-Sea has a dedicated harbor fleet too. They're as brawny as any but look a little moreso - muscular, almost hulking with those white superstructures stark against the sky. K-Sea also has a pushboat, the curious Odin, odd to the eye but insistently practical.

There's N.Y., and there's N.Y., N.Y. They are as unalike as two places can be. One is upstate, the other is downstate. One is composed of small and medium-size towns, the other ranks with the biggest cities in the world. One is a land laced with rivers and canals, the other occupies islands on one of the Atlantic's broadest harbors. Attitudes and styles are different in both places, too. Ed Koch, a television personality who once campaigned for governor, can tell you from experience that a big-city boy never mentions "gingham dresses" north of White Plains. Waterford and Manhattan are a three-hour ride apart, two if you speed, but even the language sounds different in both places. But they both have their tugboats. And everyone loves tugboats.