Barge on River Thames, London - Dec 2009

Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels. The term barge has a rich history, and therefore there are many other types of barges.

History of the barge

Etymology

"Barge" is attested from 1300, from

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intellig ...

''barge'', from

Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...

''barga''. The word originally could refer to any small boat; the modern meaning arose around 1480. ''Bark'' "small ship" is attested from 1420, from Old French ''barque'', from Vulgar Latin ''barca'' (400 AD). The more precise meaning of

Barque A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts having the fore- and mainmasts rigged square and only the mizzen (the aftmost mast) rigged fore and aft. Sometimes, the mizzen is only partly fore-and-aft rigged, b ...

as "three-masted sailing vessel" arose in the 17th century, and often takes the French spelling for disambiguation. Both are probably derived from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''barica'', from

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

''baris'' "Egyptian boat", from Coptic ''bari'' "small boat",

hieroglyphic Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1,00 ...

Egyptian D58-G29-M17-M17-D21-P1 and similar ''ba-y-r'' for "basket-shaped boat". By extension, the term "embark" literally means to board the kind of boat called a "barque".

The British river barge

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...

a merchant barge was originally a flat bottomed merchant vessel for use on navigable rivers. Most of these barges had sails. For traffic on the River Severn the barge was described as: ''The lesser sort are called barges and frigates, being from forty to sixty feet in length, having a single mast and square sail, and carrying from twenty to forty tons burthen.'' The larger vessels were called trows. On the River Irwell there was reference to barges passing below Barton Aqueduct with their mast and sails standing. Barges on the

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

were called west country barges.

Narrowboats and Widebeams

During the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

, a substantial network of narrow canals was developed in Great Britain from 1750 onward. These new British canals had locks of only wide. This led to the development of the narrowboats, which had a beam of no more than . It was soon realized that the narrow locks were too limiting. Later locks were therefore doubled in width to . This led to the development of the

widebeam A widebeam is a canal boat built in the style of a British narrowboat but with a beam of or greater.The Canal and River Trust (CRT) gives more than one minimum width for a wide beam on their website: "anything wider than []" in ''Wide beam, wid ...

. The narrowboats were initially also known as barges, but only a very few had sails. From the start, most of the new canals were constructed with an adjacent towpath, which made it possible to tow them by draft horses. These types of

canal craft This is a list of the types of craft to be found on the canals and non-tidal rivers of the United Kingdom for which the Canal and River Trust have a licence category: *Thames sailing barges, *Barges *Dutch barges *Cabin cruisers *Canoes and kaya ...

are so specific that on the British canal system the term 'barge' is not used to describe narrowboats and

The Thames barge and Dutch barge

On the British canal system, the

Thames sailing barge A Thames sailing barge is a type of commercial sailing boat once common on the River Thames in London. The flat-bottomed barges with a shallow draught and leeboards, were perfectly adapted to the Thames Estuary, with its shallow waters and na ...

, and Dutch barge and unspecified other styles of barge, are still known as barges. The term Dutch barge is nowadays often used to refer to an accommodation ship, but originally refers to the slightly larger Dutch version of the Thames sailing barge.

Crew and pole

The people who moved barges were known as

lightermen A lighterman is a worker who operates a lighter, a type of flat-bottomed barge, which may be powered or unpowered. In the latter case, today it is usually moved by a powered tug. The term is particularly associated with the highly skilled men ...

. Poles are used on barges to fend off other nearby vessels or a wharf. These are often called 'pike poles'. The long pole used to maneuver or propel a barge has given rise to the saying "I wouldn't touch that ubject/thingwith a barge pole."

The 19th century British barge

In the United Kingdom the word barge had many meanings by the 1890s, and these varied locally. On the

Mersey The River Mersey () is in North West England. Its name derives from Old English and means "boundary river", possibly referring to its having been a border between the ancient kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. For centuries it has formed part ...

a barge was called a 'Flat', on the Thames a

Lighter A lighter is a portable device which creates a flame, and can be used to ignite a variety of items, such as cigarettes, gas lighter, fireworks, candles or campfires. It consists of a metal or plastic container filled with a flammable liquid or ...

or barge, and on the Humber a 'Keel'. A Lighter had neither mast nor rigging. A keel did have a single mast with sails. Barge and lighter were used indiscriminately. A local distinction was that any flat that was not propelled by steam was a barge, although it might be a sailing flat. The term Dumb barge was probably taken into use to end the confusion. The term Dumb barge surfaced in the early nineteenth century. It first denoted the use of a barge as a mooring platform in a fixed place. As it went up and down with the tides, it made a very convenient mooring place for steam vessels. Within a few decades, the term dumb barge evolved, and came to mean: 'a vessel propelled by oars only'. By the 1890s Dumb barge was still used only on the Thames. By 1880 barges on British rivers and canals were often towed by steam tugboats. On the Thames, many dumb barges still relied on their poles, oars and the tide. Others dumb barges made use of about 50 tugboats to tow them to their destinations. While many coal barges were towed, many dumb barges that handled single parcels were not.

The 19th century American barge

In the United States a barge was not a sailing vessel by the end of the 19th century. Indeed, barges were often created by cutting down razeeing sailing vessels. In New York this was an accepted meaning of the term barge. The somewhat smaller

scow A scow is a smaller type of barge. Some scows are rigged as sailing scows. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, scows carried cargo in coastal waters and inland waterways, having an advantage for navigating shallow water or small harbours. S ...

was built as such, but the scow also had its sailing counterpart the sailing scow.

The modern barge

The iron barge

The innovation that led to the modern barge was the use of iron barges towed by a steam tugboat. These were first used to transport grain and other bulk products. From about 1840 to 1870 the towed iron barge was quickly introduced on the Rhine, Danube, Don, Dniester, and rivers in Egypt, India and Australia. Many of these barges were built in Great Britain. Nowadays 'barge' generally refers to a dumb barge. In Europe, a Dumb barge is: ''An inland waterway transport freight vessel designed to be towed which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion''. In America, a barge is generally pushed.

Modern use

Barges are used today for low-value bulk items, as the cost of hauling goods by barge is very low. Barges are also used for very heavy or bulky items; a typical American barge measures , and can carry up to about of cargo. The most common European barge measures and can carry up to about . As an example, on June 26, 2006, a catalytic cracking unit reactor was shipped by barge from the

Tulsa Port of Catoosa The primary facility of the Tulsa Ports, known as the Tulsa Port of Catoosa, is near the city of Catoosa in Rogers County, just inside the municipal fenceline of Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States. Located at the head of navigation for the McClell ...

in Oklahoma to a refinery in

Pascagoula, Mississippi Pascagoula ( ) is a city in Jackson County, Mississippi, United States. It is the principal city of the Pascagoula Metropolitan Statistical Area, and is part of the Gulfport– Biloxi–Pascagoula Combined Statistical Area. The population was 2 ...

. Extremely large objects are normally shipped in sections and assembled onsite, but shipping an assembled unit reduced costs and avoided reliance on construction labor at the delivery site (which in this case was still recovering from Hurricane Katrina). Of the reactor's journey, only about were traveled overland, from the final port to the refinery. Self-propelled barges may be used as such when traveling downstream or upstream in placid waters; they are operated as an unpowered barge, with the assistance of a tugboat, when traveling upstream in faster waters. Canal barges are usually made for the particular canal in which they will operate.

Barges in the United States

In times before industrial development, railways, and highways: barges were the predominant and most efficient means of inland transportation in many regions. This holds true today, for many areas of the world. In such pre-industrialized, or poorly developed infrastructure regions, many barges are purpose-designed to be powered on waterways by long slender poles – thereby becoming known on American waterways as poleboats as the extensive west of North America was settled using the vast tributary river systems of the

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

. Poleboats use muscle power of "walkers" along the sides of the craft pushing a pole against the streambed, canal or lake bottom to move the vessel where desired. In settling the American west it was generally faster to navigate downriver from

Brownsville, Pennsylvania Brownsville is a borough in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, United States, first settled in 1785 as the site of a trading post a few years after the defeat of the Iroquois enabled a post-Revolutionary war resumption of westward migration. The Tradin ...

, to the Ohio River confluence with the

and then pole upriver against the current to St. Louis than to travel overland on the rare primitive dirt roads for many decades after the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

. Once the New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads reached Chicago, that time dynamic changed, and American poleboats became less common, relegated to smaller rivers and more remote streams. On the Mississippi riverine system today, including that of other sheltered waterways, industrial barge trafficking in bulk raw materials such as coal, coke, timber, iron ore and other minerals is extremely common; in the developed world using huge cargo barges that connect in groups and trains-of-barges in ways that allow cargo volumes and weights considerably greater than those used by pioneers of modern barge systems and methods in the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

Such barges need to be towed by tugboats or pushed by towboats. Canal barges, towed by draft animals on a waterway adjacent towpath were of fundamental importance in the early

, whose major early engineering projects were efforts to build viaducts,

aqueducts Aqueduct may refer to: Structures *Aqueduct (bridge), a bridge to convey water over an obstacle, such as a ravine or valley *Navigable aqueduct, or water bridge, a structure to carry navigable waterway canals over other rivers, valleys, railw ...

and especially canals to fuel and feed raw materials to nascent factories in the early industrial takeoff (18th century) and take their goods to ports and cities for distribution. The barge and canal system contended favourably with the railways in the early

before around the 1850s–1860s; for example, the Erie Canal in New York state is credited by economic historians with giving the growth boost needed for

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

to eclipse

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

as America's largest port and city – but such canal systems with their locks, need for maintenance and dredging, pumps and sanitary issues were eventually outcompeted in the carriage of high-value items by the railways due to the higher speed, falling costs and route flexibility of

rail transport Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a p ...

. Barge and canal systems were nonetheless of great, perhaps even primary, economic importance until after the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

in Europe, particularly in the more developed nations of the

Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

and especially

which more or less made the system characteristically its own. Nowadays, custom built special purpose equipment called modular barges are extensively used in surveying, mapping, laying and burial of subsea optic fibre cables worldwide and other support services. In the United States, deckhands perform the labor and are supervised by a bos'n or the mate. The captain and pilot steer the towboat, which pushes one or more barges held together with rigging, collectively called 'the tow'. The crew live aboard the towboat as it travels along the inland river system or the intracoastal waterways. These towboats travel between ports and are also called line-haul boats.

Types

* Admiral's barge *

Articulated tug and barge A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, suc ...

* Barracks barge ("accommodation barge") * Bin barge * Canal motorship *

Car float A railroad car float or rail barge is a specialised form of lighter with railway tracks mounted on its deck used to move rolling stock across water obstacles, or to locations they could not otherwise go. An unpowered barge, it is towed by a t ...

Ferrocement Ferrocement or ferro-cement is a system of construction using reinforced mortar or plaster (lime or cement, sand, and water) applied over an "armature" of metal mesh, woven, expanded metal, or metal-fibers, and closely spaced thin steel rods ...

or "Concrete" Barge * Crane barge * Dredges * Deck barge * Dutch barge * Dry bulk cargo barge *

Gundalow A gundalow (also known in period accounts as a "gondola") is a type of flat-bottomed sailing barge once common in Maine and New Hampshire rivers. It first appeared in the mid-1600s, reached maturity of design in the 1700 and 1800s, and lingered i ...

Hopper barge A hopper barge is a kind of non-mechanical ship or vessel that cannot move around by itself, unlike some other types of barges, that is designed to carry materials, like rocks, sand, soil and rubbish, for dumping into the ocean, a river or lak ...

Hotel barge A hotel barge (fr. ''péniche hôtel'') is a barge that has been built or converted to serve as a hotel or other kind of lodging. Hotel barges are generally found on rivers and canals in Europe, and may be used for river cruises or permanently mo ...

Horse-drawn boat A horse-drawn boat or tow-boat is a historic boat operating on a canal, pulled by a horse walking beside the canal on a towpath. United Kingdom The Romans are known to have used mules to haul boats on their waterways in the UK. Boat horses were t ...

Jackup barge A jackup rig or a self-elevating unit is a type of mobile platform that consists of a buoyant hull fitted with a number of movable legs, capable of raising its hull over the surface of the sea. The buoyant hull enables transportation of the unit a ...

* Landing craft *

* Liquid cargo barge * Log barge * Notch barge * Narrowboat * Norfolk wherry * Rocket landing barge * Oil barge * Paddle barge * Péniche or Spitz barge *

Pleasure barge A pleasure barge is a flat-bottomed, slow-moving boat used for leisure. It is contrasted with a standard barge, which is used to transport freight. Many places where canals or rivers play a prominent role have developed pleasure barges for conduc ...

* Power barge * Row barge * Royal barge * Sand barge * Severn trow * Tank barge *

* Tub boat * Vehicular barge * Whaleback barge *

Widebeam A widebeam is a canal boat built in the style of a British narrowboat but with a beam of or greater.The Canal and River Trust (CRT) gives more than one minimum width for a wide beam on their website: "anything wider than []" in ''Wide beam, wid ...

Image gallery

File:PénicheRecyclageFerrailles2008Deûle2.jpg, A self propelled barge carrying recycling material on Deûle channel in

Lambersart Lambersart () is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. This commune is located in the Métropole Européenne de Lille, and is a suburb of the city of Lille, bordering it on its northwest side. Inhabitants of the town are called ...

File:Barge with cars.jpg, Self-propelled car barge on the

River Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

File:Péniches sur le Canal du Midi.jpg, Barges near Toulouse, France File:Andromeda (ship, 1958) Hannover Mittellandkanal 2006 by-RaBoe.jpg, Self-propelled barge ''Andromeda'' in canal at

Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

, Germany File:Messina_Karden_Bug.jpg, Tank barge on the River Moselle, Germany File:CrushedStoneBarge.jpg, Self-propelled barge carrying bulk crushed stone File:IjmuidenBarge.jpg, Self-propelled barge in the port of IJmuiden, Netherlands File:Pegasus_barge_being_moved_by_Freedom_Star_and_towboat_American_2.jpg, Barge carrying the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program ...

external tank for STS-119 under tow to

Port Canaveral Port Canaveral is a cruise, cargo, and naval port in Brevard County, Florida, United States. It is one of the busiest cruise ports in the world with 4.5 million cruise passengers passing through during 2016. Over 5.4 million tonnes of bulk car ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, United States File:Yangzhou-Modern-Grand-Canal-boats-3351.JPG, Self-propelled barges on the

Grand Canal of China The Grand Canal, known to the Chinese as the Jing–Hang Grand Canal (, or more commonly, as the「大运河」("Grand Canal")), a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the longest canal or artificial river in the world. Starting in Beijing, it passes ...

near

Yangzhou Yangzhou, postal romanization Yangchow, is a prefecture-level city in central Jiangsu Province (Suzhong), East China. Sitting on the north bank of the Yangtze, it borders the provincial capital Nanjing to the southwest, Huai'an to the north ...

Jiangsu Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its ca ...

, China File:CoalbargePittsburgh.JPG, Coal barges passing Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on the Ohio River File:Suphannahongsa-docked.jpg, Royal Barge ''Suphannahong'' docked at Wat Arun

pier Seaside pleasure pier in Brighton, England. The first seaside piers were built in England in the early 19th century.">England.html" ;"title="Brighton, England">Brighton, England. The first seaside piers were built in England in the early 19th ...

, one of the Thai royal barges featured in the royal barge ceremony Image:Donna York.jpg, Towboat ''Donna York'' pushing barges of coal up the Ohio River at

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

, United States File:Ilia Efimovich Repin (1844-1930) - Volga Boatmen (1870-1873).jpg, '' Barge Haulers on the Volga'' (1870–73), by Ilya Repin File:Kapal tongkang.jpg, ''Tongkang'' or car barge, landed on Ketapang Port, Banyuwangi, Indonesia File:slipway at portland.JPG,

Slipway A slipway, also known as boat ramp or launch or boat deployer, is a ramp on the shore by which ships or boats can be moved to and from the water. They are used for building and repairing ships and boats, and for launching and retrieving small ...

at Portland Harbour,

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, holding a split dump barge (on right) File:Barge on Mosel by Kues (1).jpg, Barge on the river Mosel in

. File:Water_Barge_YW-59.jpg, US Navy Water

Type B ship The Type B ship is a United States Maritime Administration (MARAD) designation for World War II barges. Barges are very low cost to build, operate and move. Barges were needed to move large bulky cargo. A tug boat, some classed as Type V ships, co ...

Barge, YW-59, launched August 29, 1941 File:YFN-958-Covered_Lighter_Barge-Non-Self-Propelled.jpg, YFN-958 a covered lighter barge, non-Self-propelled. Built by Mare Island Navy Shipyard in 1944. File:Concrete Barge - Erie Canal - Lock 13 - 3.jpg,

Barge, US-102, in the Erie Canal File:Ww2 concrete barge, National Waterway Museum.jpg, WW2 concrete barge at the

National Waterways Museum The National Waterways Museum (NWM) is in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, England, at the northern end of the Shropshire Union Canal where it meets the Manchester Ship Canal (). The museum's collections and archives focus on the Britain's navigable inl ...

, Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, UK File:Sun Shining Into a Barge.jpg, Sun shining into the empty asphalt barge ''Endeavour'' while under repair in

Muskegon, Michigan Muskegon ( ') is a city in Michigan. It is the county seat of Muskegon County. Muskegon is known for fishing, sailing regattas, pleasure boating, and as a commercial and cruise ship port. It is a popular vacation destination because of the expans ...

. File:Pelican Barge, Darling Harbor, Sydney, NSW, AU.jpg, A barge decorated to look like a pelican carrying a jumbotron display. File:AWB Rajawali Natuna.jpg, Accommodation Work Barge

References

* * * * * * * * * * *

Notes

External links

Barge Lehigh Valley 79 at the Waterfront Museum

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York,

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

Britain's Official guide to canals, rivers and lakes
*

DBA The Barge Association

The American Waterways Operators
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