Bollinger Delivers DBL101

Bollinger Shipyards, Inc., Lockport, La., has delivered DBL101, the first of four Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA’90) double hull, ocean service, oil tank barges to K-Sea Transportation Corp. While the DBL 101 was in the final stages of construction, Bollinger also retrofitted the K-Sea tug TASMAN SEA with a JAK coupler system, creating an ATB unit. Bollinger and K-Sea announced a newbuilding contract in March 2001, for the series of 4 barges with capacities of 80,000 to 100,000 barrels (BBL). Bollinger Marine Fabricators (BMF), Amelia, La., fabricated modules for the new 400-ft. by 74-ft. by 25-ft., 100,000 BBL barge and shipped them to Bollinger Gretna (Harvey, La.) for final assembly and installation of piping and other systems. Bollinger Gretna has built numerous double hull barges and OPA ’90 barges throughout its 65-year history. DBL101 was built to a new design provided by Guarino and Cox naval architects and marine engineers, Mandeville, La., which was adapted from a Richard Taubler Inc. design. The unmanned barge features an eight-foot high trunk deck to increase cargo capacity, and is designed to carry Grade A oil and other petroleum products in ten tanks with capacities from 9,700 BBL to 10,300 BBL each. The DBL 101 is equipped with vapor recovery and Metritape closed gauging and alarm systems and can load cargo at a maximum rate of 17,500 BBL per hour, with a discharge rate of 4,900 BBL per hour from each of its two diesel driven deepwell pumps. The barge is also equipped with a Byron Jackson ballast system with two hydraulic deepwell pumps. Detroit Diesel Series 60 engines power the cargo and ballast pumps and a Detroit Diesel Series 71 engine powers the generator. All were supplied by Stewart & Stevenson Services, Inc., Harvey, La. DBL101 is American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) classed A1, Maltese Cross oil tank barge, unlimited ocean and U. S. Coast Guard sub-chapter D approved. K-Sea’s DBL81, the first of two 80,000 BBL clean oil barges built at Bollinger, is under construction at BMF with a projected January 2003 delivery. Walter Berry, executive vice president and chief operating officer, of Bollinger said, “While DBL101 was under construction, K-Sea’s 123.5-ft. tug, TASMAN SEA, was being retrofitted at Bollinger Gulf Repair in New Orleans with a JAK coupler system. The installation required only 42 days to complete, allowing K-Sea to plan its withdrawal from service with a minimum of downtime as the entire ATB project and completion dates were under one integrated management and production system. These are exactly the kinds of expanded services and synergies we envisioned when we added the two New Orleans area shipyards in August 2000, along with another in Calcasieu, Louisiana and two others in Texas. The yards worked simultaneously on the same project to provide our customer with better service.” Built by Acomarin Engineering, Oy Ltd., Finland, a sister company of Acomarin International, (http://www.seacompanion.com/fi/acomarin/2b.htm), the JAK coupler system, unlike old hawser boat/barge connection systems, allows the tug and its barge to act as one unit in the water. The tug has a steel cylinder, or pin, on each side near the front of its hull and the barge has a corresponding plate on each side to receive the pins. Air pressure provides the force required to hold the cylinders in place. According to Acomarin, the JAK pusher barge assembly coupling offers a number of advantages when compared to other coupling assemblies including: The system weighs approximately 35% less than other coupling systems; the couplings contain no cast steel components, the coupling fixing plates are surface mounted (welded) to the barge; no changes in general arrangements are required on existing vessels as the JAK-equipment is mounted just below the main deck of the tug; dynamic forces exerted to the JAK activating cylinders and their supports are more controlled than with conventional systems; no separate hydraulic system is required as JAK is driven by the tug’s ordinary compressed air system; and design and installation require considerably less labor than other comparable systems.