Lighter aboard ship
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The lighter aboard ship (LASH) system refers to the practice of loading barges (lighters) aboard a larger vessel for transport.
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[edit] Development
The palette of the sea ship types was extended in September, 1969 by another type. With the commissioning of the Acadia Forrest the transport of ships in the ship to the connection through seas of separate inland waterways took his beginning. A big carrier ship takes as a lighter or barges (ships without own impulse) called swimming normed cargo containers on. In the port of destination the carrier ship separates from these barges again. They become moved there in the harbour, on canals and rivers as vehicles of the inland shipping in a push line. The carrier ships are called LASH-Carrier, Barge-carrier, Kangaroo ships or Lighter Transport Ships.
[edit] Economic meaning
Regardless of the respective harbour situations should transport every Barge-carrier 5-spot more goods than one piece good transporter conventional more commonly at that time. In it the special interest also lay with this ship type in the beginning of the 1970s and to him so optimistically to intended future prospects. The seaside piece good transport already did not correspond in the 1950s any more to the claims of many sea transport customers. A rationalisation of the piece good envelope at that time was to be reached only about a standardization in her dimensions, forms and in her external state often to very different load parts. Worldwide the standardised ISO container asserted itself in the 1960s only slowly. The big container terminals with his extensive conveyor-technical arrangements and the gigantic resting places were still in planning or in the development. Under these conditions offered the LASH-Carrier system with his lighters which are also to be characterised as swimming containers, as an alternative and supplement to the developing container traffic. At that time transport experts thought of a future-laden and rational transport technology. With the lighters there was no pressure of time in the unloading and loading. Insufficient equipment of the harbours and missing quay moorings had no influence on the company of the carrier ship. While the lighters were unloaded and loaded the carrier ship with other lighters already was on the move again. It had become possible with the fact that themselves these ships spent more than 80% of her annual application time at sea. Customary ships often lay half of her annual application in the harbour.
[edit] History
The LASH system was developed by the American shipbuilding engineer Jerome Goldman in the 1960s. The worldwide first LASH-Carrier was the Acadia Forest (1969). This ship type could take up 75 standardised lighters with about 376 metric tons of loading capacity. On the 15th December touched for the last time the Rhine Forest, ex Bilderdijk of Holland-Amerika Line the Port of Rotterdam. It is a sister's ship of MV München. The LASH lighter with the registration p. CG 6013 was handed over to the museum De Binnenvaart' in Dordrecht and now is a component of this inland ship journey museum. Because of the bad extent of utilisation the regular traffic was put between New Orleans and Rotterdam.
[edit] Technology LASH-System
An important technical problem by the realisation of the new transport system was the envelope of the lighters. A differentiation sign of the different projects and also built vehicles was the way as the lighters from or aboard were brought. The LASH-System found the biggest range of application. On this occasion, the lighters individually from the water were heaved in the rear of the carrier ship by a very big main entrance crane. This main entrance crane could move about the whole ship length and stow away thus the taken up lighters several times about one another in the ship body and in deck. The cranes had a load-carrying capacity of more than 500 Mp. Turning a lighter lasted on average 15 min LASH ships in Europe, Japan and the USA were built almost uniform para metres had.
[edit] Technical data
| Typ of Carrier | LASH 1 | LASH2 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Length about everything | m | 262 | 250 |
| Beam | m | 32,50 | 30,50 |
| Draught | m | 11,30 | 10,70 |
| Tonnage | tonns | 43000 | 29600 |
| Speed | knots | 19 | 22 |
| Power | hp | 26000 | 32000 |
| Typ of lighter | |
|---|---|
| Length | 18,70 m |
| Beam | 9,50 m |
| Headway | 4,00 m |
| Weight total | 80,00 tonns |
| Capacity | 380,00 tonns |
| Draught | 2,60 m |
[edit] Sea bee-System
The first ship of a series of three Sea bee-ships was the MV Doctor Lykes. A system with which in the rear of the carrier ship a lift is arranged is called Sea bee. These lift is also called Syncrolift. This has a lifting force of more than 2000 Mp. The Syncrolift is lowered under the water surface. On this underwater platform two to 1,000 metric tons lighters are swum and raised by this in the suitable deck height. On special rails transport carriage the lighters are rolled in lengthwise of the ship to her traffic jam places. On three decks of the MV Doctor Lykes 38 lighters could be stopped. Of it 12 on the lower decks and 14 in upper deck. The double function of the ship is noteworthy. The side tanks and the unusually big double ground of the vehicle showed a tank capacity of nearly 36000 m³ volume. The ship could be used also as a product tanker. The lighters used in the Sea bee-System are considerably bigger than the LASH-Lighter.
[edit] BACAT-System
A Danish project with the name BACAT (Barge-Catamaran) was introduced to BACAT system in the end of 1973. Was planned of the Transport of several hundred thousand metric tons of load between Northern Europe and Great Britain. For the application a system similar to the Sea bee should come. However, the lighters were smaller and had only one load-carrying capacity of maximum 140 t.
[edit] Problems and risks
With the application of Barge-Carriers originated problems which were unknown to the sea ship journey shipping companies up to now. Aboard the carrier ship the lighter is nothing else than one big load container. In the seaport and on the inland waterways he becomes a vessel. Requirements for equipment regulations like anchor, winches, coupling facilities, signal lamps arise from it. For put together ship unities had to be provided so-called head barges. These regulations can be quite different in the different harbours in Europe, North America and Asia. Elaborately the transport system developed with a service of waterways which freeze over in winter and it came to a setting of the inland ship operation. This required a high capital expenditure. This expenditure, linked with the risks for an economic operation of the carrier ships and her lighters, required conscientious traffic-economic investigations which were much costlier than for customary freighters or for the container ships conquering the market and her transport system. Barge carrier and lighter show a technological interesting sea transport system. They are economic only if many specific traffic-economic conditions are fulfilled.
