Lighter aboard ship
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The lighter aboard ship (LASH) system refers to the practice of loading
History
Development
During World War II the United States
The LASH system was developed as an alternative and supplement to the developing container system. The lighters, which may be characterized as floating cargo containers, served dual purposes: transportation over water, and the establishment of a modular, standardized shape for loading and unloading cargo. The lighters, also known as swimming normed cargo containers, are loaded onto a LASH carrier at the port of embarkation and unloaded from the ship at the port of destination. Each lighter was approximately 60 ft × 30 ft × 15 ft (18.3 m × 9.1 m × 4.6 m) (L×W×H), with a capacity of 385 t (379 long tons; 424 short tons) and 550 m3 (19,000 cu ft); the dry (unladen) weight of each steel lighter was 3.9 t (4.3 short tons).[2]
The system was developed during the 1960s by the American shipbuilding engineer Jerome Goldman. Acadia Forest, commissioned in September 1969,[2] was the first LASH carrier - the ship could take up 75 standardized lighters, with about 376 metric tons of total loading capacity. At the time, it was a novel kind of ship, the first vessel designed primarily to transport other, smaller ships.
In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union built Sevmorput, a nuclear-powered LASH carrier. Sevmorput was one of only four nuclear powered cargo vessels ever built, the largest and the only one in an active commercial service, as it mainly operates in the Russian domestic waters along the Northern Sea Route, where it's unencumbered by the ports' unwillingness to accommodate nuclear ships, a problem that made other nuclear cargo vessels impractical.
Economic impact
At the time of its invention, the system was considered by experts to be a considerable advancement in shipping technology. LASH carriers were able to transport five times more cargo than a comparable conventional transport ship, the loading and unloading process was much more efficient, and a lack of harbor equipment or quay moorings provided no obstacle, as the lighters could be loaded directly onto the ship. The system also relieved the pressure to unload as quickly as possible, since the lighters already in the water could be moved while others were being unloaded. All told, these ships spent more than 80% of their annual application time at sea, whereas the conventional ships often lay at harbor for as much as half the year.
Problems and shortcomings
New problems which were as yet unknown to shipping companies arose with the advent of the LASH system and similar barge carriers. Aboard the carrier ship, the lighter is simply a large cargo container, but in the seaport and on the inland waterways it becomes a vessel. As a vessel, they are subject to requirements for equipment regulations like anchors. Also, serving waterways which freeze over in winter required a high capital expenditure.
Studies showed that the costs of addressing these issues, along with the costs of operating the carrier ships and their lighters, were much higher than for the customary freighter ships or the ISO-compliant container ships that were beginning to conquer the transportation market. While barge carriers and lighters are a technologically interesting sea transport system, they are economic only under certain specific conditions of traffic and economy.[3] [4]
Preservation
On 15 December 2007, Rhine Forest,
Designs
LASH
LASH barges are loaded at inland river and shallow ports. Then, the barges are towed to ocean port's fleeting areas to meet the LASH mother vessel. On arrival, the mother vessel crane lifts the LASH barges onto the ships. LASH cargo does not require transshipment, as the movement from the origin to destination takes place with a single bill of lading.
An important technical problem raised by the invention of the new transport system was the shape of the lighters. Several other designs, differentiated mainly by the shape of the lighters and the loading mechanism, were proposed, but the LASH system found the largest range of applications. In this approach, the lighters were individually lifted onto the carrier ship by a large gantry crane located at the stern of the ship. The crane could move the entire length of the ship and stack the lighters atop each other in the ship's body and on the deck. The cranes had a load-carrying capacity of more than 500 Mp. [clarification needed] Loading or unloading a lighter took on average fifteen minutes. LASH ships were constructed in Europe, Japan and the US with almost uniform parameters.
The host vessel is sometimes purpose-built or modified with a door at the waterline, to allow the payloads to be loaded and unloaded without special lifting equipment. An example would be SS Cape Florida (AK-5071) (originally LASH Turkiye), built at Avondale Shipyard for the American shipping line Prudential Grace, and later transferred to the Ready Reserve Fleet.[6]
Technical data
Parameter | LASH 1 | LASH 2 |
---|---|---|
Overall length | 262 m 860 ft |
250 m 820 ft |
Beam | 32.50 m 106.6 ft |
30.50 m 100.1 ft |
Draught | 11.30 m 37.1 ft |
10.70 m 35.1 ft |
Tonnage | 43,000 t 47,000 short tons |
29,600 t 32,600 short tons |
Speed | 19 kn 35 km/h; 22 mph |
22 kn 41 km/h; 25 mph |
Power | 26,000 hp 19,000 kW |
32,000 hp 24,000 kW |
Parameter | |
---|---|
Length | 18.70 m 61.4 ft |
Beam | 9.50 m 31.2 ft |
Headway | 4.00 m 13.12 ft |
Weight | 80.00 t 88.18 short tons |
Capacity | 380.00 t 418.88 short tons |
Draught | 2.60 m 8 ft 6 in |
Sea Bee system
Another related system was the Sea Bee, which had a lifting system located at the stern of the carrier ship, known as Type C8-class ship. The lift, known as a "Syncrolift" was a platform that could be lowered below the water surface. Two lighters weighing up to 1,000 metric tons are maneuvered onto the submerged platform and raised to the height of the deck, where special rails engage and transport the lighters down the length of the ship to their berthings. The lighters used in the Sea Bee system are considerably larger than the LASH lighter, and the loading hardware is also stronger, with a lifting force of more than 2,000 Mp.
The first ship of a series of three Sea Bee ships was
Finnish state-owned shipbuilding company
Technical data
Parameters | |
---|---|
Overall length | 266.70 m 875.0 ft |
Beam | 32.26 m 105.8 ft |
Height to the first deck | 9.70 m 31.8 ft |
Height to the main deck | 16.10 m 52.8 ft |
Height to the upper deck | 22.80 m 74.8 ft |
Draught | 10.00 m 32.81 ft |
Capacity | 27,500 t 30,300 short tons |
Displacement | 45,400 t 50,000 short tons |
Speed | 20 kn 37 km/h; 23 mph |
Power | 36,000 hp 27,000 kW |
Parameters | |
---|---|
Length | 29.75 m 97.6 ft |
Beam | 10.67 m 35.0 ft |
Headway | 3.80 m 12.5 ft |
Weight | 150 t 170 short tons |
Capacity | 850 t 940 short tons |
Draught | 3.25 m 10.7 ft |
BACAT system
A Danish project with the name BACAT (Barge-Catamaran) was introduced at the end of 1973. It was used for the transport of several hundred thousand metric tons of load between northern Europe and Great Britain. The system was similar to the Sea Bee, but the lighters were smaller and had an individual load-carrying capacity of only 140 tons.
Technical data
Parameters | |
---|---|
Overall length | 103.50 m 339.6 ft |
Beam | 20.70 m 67.9 ft |
Headway | 10.50 m 34.4 ft |
Draught | 5.40 m 17.7 ft |
Capacity | 2,700 t 3,000 short tons |
Speed | 13 kn 24 km/h; 15 mph |
Power | 2,250 hp 1,680 kW |
Parameters | Lighter type 1 | Lighter type 2 |
---|---|---|
Length | 16.80 m 55.1 ft |
18.75 m 61.5 ft |
Beam | 4.70 m 15.4 ft |
9.50 m 31.2 ft |
Draught | 2.47 m 8 ft 1 in |
2.50 m 8 ft 2 in |
Capacity | 140 t 150 short tons |
370 t 410 short tons |
BACO System
1979 saw the introduction of the BaCo system, newly developed by Captain H. Mönke and Thyssen
The BaCo barges were relatively large compared to the LASH barges, having a
In total three Baco Liners were built between 1979 and 1984, named Baco Liner 1, Baco-Liner 2 and Baco Liner 3. Owner was the Baco-Liner GmbH Emden, founded by the shipyard, the Rhein-, Maas- und See-Schiffahrtskontor GmbH (RMS) as well as Rhenus-WTAG, Dortmund. Operator was RMS. The BaCo barges were among others built by Cassens-Werft in Emden.
The Baco-Liners were employed in the liner's service between Northern Europe and West Africa and sailed without major incidents. After the sea transport shifted more and more to containers, the ships were scrapped between 2012 and 2013.
Technical data
Parameters | |
---|---|
Length over all | 204.10 m 669.6 ft |
Beam | 28.50 m 93.5 ft |
Depth | 14.50 m 47.6 ft |
Draught | 6.65 m 21.8 ft |
Deadweight | 21,100 t 23,300 short tons |
Speed | 15 kn 28 km/h; 17 mph |
Power | 10,570 hp 7,880 kW |
Parameters | BaCo | LASH |
---|---|---|
Length | 24.00 m 78.74 ft |
18.75 m 61.5 ft |
Beam | 9.50 m 31.2 ft |
9.50 m 31.2 ft |
Draught | 4.15 m 13.6 ft |
2.50 m 8 ft 2 in |
deadweight | 800 t 880 short tons |
370 t 410 short tons |
References
- ^ shipslist
- ^ a b Zehner, Joe; Scoggin, David (January 25, 2020). "Remembering LASH". Maritime Executive. Retrieved 15 June 2021.
- ^ article in The Hindu Business Line
- ^ article in JOC
- ^ MV Rhine Forest
- ^ vesselhistory.marad.dot.gov, SS Cape Mendocino
Additional reading
- Jahrbuch der Schiffahrt 1974 Schiffe im Schiff (Float on / Floot of) TRANSPRESS Berlin 1973 (in German)
- Hans Jürgen Witthöft: Huckepack über See, Koeher Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Herford, 1982, ISBN 3-7822-0275-9
- E. de Jong: BACO - BArgen und COntainer in einem Schiff, Schiffahrt International 3/80, S. 123-124