TOTE Maritime is an owner/operator of domestic shipping in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. It specializes in moving cargo between

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

Puerto Rico ; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...

and

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

. TOTE Maritime Puerto Rico was the owner of '' El Faro'', a large

container ship A container ship (also called boxship or spelled containership) is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermodal ...

that sank in 2015 after she steamed directly into a hurricane.Slade, Rachel. ''Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm and the Sinking of the El Faro''. HarperCollins, New York, 2018.

Subsidiaries

The Sea Star Line is a subsidiary of Tote Maritime.

Fleet

;Historic * SS ''Great Land'' 1975 - Ponce-Class

roll-on/roll-off Roll-on/roll-off (RORO or ro-ro) ships are cargo ships designed to carry wheeled cargo, such as cars, motorcycles, trucks, semi-trailer trucks, buses, Trailer (vehicle), trailers, and railroad cars, that are driven on and off the ship on their ...

ship, decommissioned after 2010 and sent to be broken up 2013 * 6 Very Large Crude Carriers - operated by Interocean Management Corporation (now Tote Services) from 1975 to 1980 * 3 Liberty Class ships - operated by Interocean Management Corporation (now Tote Services) from 1975 to 1980 * SS ''Westward Venture'' 1977 - Ponce-Class Ro/RO ship * SS ''Northern Lights'' 1975, renamed 1991 and acquired in 1993; became SS ''El Faro'' in 2006 and sank in 2015 * SS ''El Morro'' 1974 - sister to ''El Faro'', scrapped in 2012 after a Coast Guard inspection revealed the ship was structurally unsound. * SS ''El Yunque'' 1976 - sister to ''El Faro'', scrapped in 2017 after a Coast Guard inspection revealed the ventilation trunks had rusted away. ;Current List of ships owned by TOTE: * 2 tug and barge set - acquired 1985 * 2 tug and barge set - acquired 1990 * MV ''Midnight Sun'' 2002 - Orca Class ship (to be converted as LNG 2016) * MV ''North Star'' 2003 - Orca Class ship (to be converted as LNG 2016) Tote Maritime is notable for ordering the world's first

LNG Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volume o ...

-powered

s: * launched on 15 April 2015 * on August 31, 2015.

Sinking of ''El Faro''

The was lost with all hands after entering the eye wall of

Hurricane Joaquin Hurricane Joaquin ( ; ) was a powerful tropical cyclone that devastated several districts of The Bahamas and caused damage in the Turks and Caicos Islands, parts of the Greater Antilles, and Bermuda. It was also the strongest Atlantic hurricane ...

and losing power between Florida and the Bahamas on October 1, 2015.

Coast Guard A coast guard or coastguard is a Maritime Security Regimes, maritime security organization of a particular country. The term embraces wide range of responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with cust ...

investigators lambasted TOTE Maritime, stating the company made several violations regarding crew members' rest periods and work hours, had no dedicated safety officer to oversee the ''El Faro'', and used outdated, "open air" lifeboats (similar to the types used on older vessels, such as the RMS ''Titanic'') instead of the modern enclosed survival craft, among other violations. The company never filed an internal incident and investigation record for the sinking.

External links

References

http://shipbuildinghistory.com/shipyards/large/sun.htm{{United States-flag shipping companies Container shipping companies of the United States Container shipping companies American companies established in 1975 Multinational companies based in Jacksonville