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The lighter aboard ship (LASH) system refers to the practice of loading
barge 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. ...
s (
lighters 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 c ...
) aboard a bigger vessel for
transport Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land ( rail and road), water, cable, pipelin ...
. It was developed in response to a need to transport lighters, a type of (usually but not always) unpowered barge, between
inland waterway A body of water, such as a river, canal or lake, is navigable if it is deep, wide and calm enough for a water vessel (e.g. boats) to pass safely. Such a navigable water is called a ''waterway'', and is preferably with few obstructions against d ...
s separated by open
sea The sea, connected as the world ocean or simply the ocean, is the body of salty water that covers approximately 71% of the Earth's surface. The word sea is also used to denote second-order sections of the sea, such as the Mediterranean Sea, ...
s. Lighters are typically towed or pushed around
harbor A harbor (American English), harbour (British English; see spelling differences), or haven is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be docked. The term ''harbor'' is often used interchangeably with ''port'', which is a ...
s,
canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface f ...
s or
river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of ...
s and cannot be relocated under their own power. The carrier ships are known variously as LASH carriers, barge carriers, kangaroo ships or lighter transport ships.


History


Development

During World War II the United States
Seabees , colors = , mascot = Bumblebee , battles = Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Cape Gloucester, Los Negros, Guam, Peleliu, Tarawa, Kwajalein, Saipan, Tinian, Iwo Jima, Philipp ...
developed a pontoon assembly for moving cargo from transports to assault beachheads that meet the needs at the time that was the forerunner to the LASH system. By the 1950s, the needs of
cargo Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including tra ...
transport customers were no longer being met by the break bulk system of loading individual cargo pieces into a ship's hold. The dimensions and shapes of cargo pieces varied widely, and the ISO standard
cargo container An intermodal container, often called a shipping container, is a large standardized shipping container, designed and built for intermodal freight transport, meaning these containers can be used across different modes of transport – from shi ...
had only slowly begun to be adopted during the 1960s. Large
container terminal A container port or container terminal is a facility where cargo containers are transshipped between different transport vehicles, for onward transportation. The transshipment may be between container ships and land vehicles, for example train ...
s with extensive conveyor systems and storage areas were still only in planning or in the development stages. 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 (L×W×H), with a capacity of and ; the dry (unladen) weight of each steel lighter was . The system was developed during the 1960s by the American shipbuilding engineer
Jerome Goldman Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is comm ...
. ''Acadia Forest'', commissioned in September 1969, 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 ''Sevmorput'' ( rus, Севморпуть, p=sʲɪvmɐrˈputʲ, Northeast Passage) is a Russian nuclear-powered cargo ship. The 1988-built vessel is one of only four nuclear-powered merchant ships ever built and, after returning to service in 2 ...
'', 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 The Northern Sea Route (NSR) (russian: Се́верный морско́й путь, ''Severnyy morskoy put'', shortened to Севморпуть, ''Sevmorput'') is a shipping route officially defined by Russian legislation as lying east of N ...
, 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
anchor An anchor is a device, normally made of metal , used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ''ancora'', which itself comes from the Greek � ...
s, winches, coupling had to be provided so-called "head barges" which could not be transported on the carrier ships. 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.


Preservation

On 15 December 2007, ''Rhine Forest'', ex-''Bilderdijk'' of the
Holland-Amerika Line Holland America Line is an American-owned cruise line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation & plc headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. Holland America Line was founded in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and from 1873 to 1989, it operated ...
, entered the
Port of Rotterdam The Port of Rotterdam is the largest seaport in Europe, and the world's largest seaport outside of East Asia, located in and near the city of Rotterdam, in the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. From 1962 until 2004, it was the worl ...
for the last time, prior to being withdrawn from service because of low utilization on the
New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
/Rotterdam route. It is a sister ship of . The LASH lighter with registration p. CG 6013 was donated to '' De Binnenvaart'', an inland-shipping museum in
Dordrecht Dordrecht (), historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, ) or Dort, is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the province's fifth-largest city after ...
, where it is now part of an exhibit.


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 Transshipment, trans-shipment or transhipment is the shipment of goods or containers to an intermediate destination, then to another destination. One possible reason for transshipment is to change the means of transport during the journey (e.g ...
, 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 A gantry crane is a crane built atop a gantry, which is a structure used to straddle an object or workspace. They can range from enormous "full" gantry cranes, capable of lifting some of the heaviest loads in the world, to small shop cranes, us ...
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. Loading or unloading a lighter took on average fifteen minutes. LASH ships were constructed in Europe,
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...
and the USA 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 (originally ''LASH Turkiye''), built at
Avondale Shipyard Avondale Shipyard was an independent shipbuilding company, acquired by Litton Industries, in turn acquired by Northrop Grumman Corporation. In 2011, along with the former Ingalls Shipbuilding, the yard was part of Huntington Ingalls Industries. It ...
for the American shipping line Prudential Grace, and later transferred to the Ready Reserve Fleet.vesselhistory.marad.dot.gov, SS Cape Mendocino
/ref>


Technical data


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 Type C8-class ships are a type of Heavy Lift Barge Carrier. Type C8 ships were the 8th type of ship designed by the United States Maritime Commission (MARCOM) in the late 1960s. As done with the Type C1 ships and Type C2 ships, MARCOM circulated ...
. 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 SS ''Doctor Lykes'', followed by SS ''Almeria Lykes'' and SS ''Tillie Lykes'' all of which were operated by
Lykes Brothers Steamship Company Lykes Bros. Steamship Co., also called Lykes Lines, was a cargo shipping company acting from the beginning of the 20th century to 2005 having its main business in the trade to and from the United States. History In 1898 the sons of Dr. Howell Tys ...
. The "Sea Bee" vessels had three decks and could transport 38 lighters (12 on the lower decks and 14 on the upper deck). The dual function of the ship is noteworthy, as it had storage tanks with a capacity of nearly 36000 m³ volume built into its sides and the unusually large double hull, allowing it to be used also as a product tanker. The ships were later purchased by
Military Sealift Command Military Sealift Command (MSC) is an organization that controls the replenishment and military transport ships of the United States Navy. Military Sealift Command has the responsibility for providing sealift and ocean transportation for all US ...
. Finnish state-owned shipbuilding company
Valmet Valmet Oyj is a Finnish company and a developer and supplier of technologies, automation systems and services for the pulp, paper and energy industries. Valmet has over 200 years of history as an industrial operator. Formerly owned by the S ...
built two barge carriers largely based on the Sea Bee system for the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
in
Vuosaari Shipyard Vuosaari shipyard was a shipyard located in the district of Vuosaari in Helsinki, Finland. Built by the Finnish state-owned company Valmet Oy in the early 1970s, the shipyard delivered 33 newbuildings and participated in building around 100 other ...
in the late 1970s, and . Of these, ''Yulius Fuchik'' was featured in a prominent role in the novel ''
Red Storm Rising ''Red Storm Rising'' is a war novel, written by Tom Clancy and co-written with Larry Bond, and released on August 7, 1986. Set in the mid-1980s, it features a Third World War between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Warsaw Pact for ...
'' by
Tom Clancy Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. (April 12, 1947 – October 1, 2013) was an American novelist. He is best known for his technically detailed espionage and military-science storylines set during and after the Cold War. Seventeen of his novels have b ...
, where it was modified to masquerade as ''Doctor Lykes.''


Technical data


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


BACO System

1979 saw the introduction of the BaCo system, newly developed by Captain H. Mönke and Thyssen Nordseewerke, in which the carrier could transport barges in addition to standard
shipping container A shipping container is a container with strength suitable to withstand shipment, storage, and handling. Shipping containers range from large reusable steel boxes used for intermodal shipments to the ubiquitous corrugated boxes. In the context of ...
s, therefore the name ''BaCo''. In addition, the barges were floated into the flooded hold through bow doors, akin to how ships enter a floating dry dock. The hold could be made watertight by closing two vertically foldable inner doors and two large outer doors; water in the hold could be pumped out during sea passage. The deck was suited for the stowage of
containers A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The ter ...
, for which a movable
gantry crane A gantry crane is a crane built atop a gantry, which is a structure used to straddle an object or workspace. They can range from enormous "full" gantry cranes, capable of lifting some of the heaviest loads in the world, to small shop cranes, us ...
was provided. The BaCo barges were relatively large compared to the LASH barges, having a deadweight of 800 t, whereby the max. draught was very large with 4.15 m. The BaCo beam of 9.5 m corresponded to the standard beam of European inland waterway transport barges, so that also four Europa barges of Type I could be stored instead of the 12 Baco barges. The container capacity was 652 TEU 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


References


Additional reading

*Jahrbuch der Schiffahrt 1974 ''Schiffe im Schiff'' (Float on / Floot of) TRANSPRESS Berlin 1973 *Hans Jürgen Witthöft: ''Huckepack über See'', Koeher Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Herford, 1982, *E. de Jong: ''BACO - BArgen und COntainer in einem Schiff'', Schiffahrt International 3/80, S. 123-124


External links

*LASH (explanatio

*Shipspottin

*SS Cape Farewel

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lighter Aboard Ship Merchant ships Ship types Water transport