Barge

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Barge

A barge is a flat-bottomed boat

Boat

A boat is a watercraft of modest size designed to float or plane on water, and provide transport over it. Usually this water will be inland or in protected coastal areas....
, built mainly for river

River

A river is a natural stream of water, usually freshwater, flowing toward an ocean, a lake, or another stream. In some cases a river flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water....
and canal

Canal

Canals are artificial channels for water. There are two types of canals: Aqueduct canals, which are used for the conveyance and delivery of water, and waterways, which are navigable transportation canals used for passage of goods and people, often connected to existing lakes, rivers, or oceans....
transport of heavy goods. Most barges are not self-propelled and need to be towed by tugboat

Tugboat

A tugboat, or tug, is a boat used to maneuver, primarily by towing or pushing, other ships in harbors, over the open sea or through rivers and canals....
s or pushed by towboats. Canal barges, towed by draft animals on an adjacent towpath

Towpath

A towpath is a road or trail on the bank of a river, canal, or other inland waterway. The purpose of a towpath is to allow a land vehicle, beasts of burden, or a team of human pullers to tow a boat, often a barge....
, contended with the railway in the early industrial revolution

Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, production, and transportation had a profound effect on the socioeconomics and cultural conditions in United Kingdom....
, but were outcompeted

History of the British canal system

The British canal system of water transport played a vital role in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland's Industrial Revolution at a time when roads were only just emerging from the medieval mud and long trains of pack horses were the only means of "mass" transit by road of raw materials and finished products ....
in the carriage of high-value items due to the higher speed, falling costs, and route flexibility of rail

Rail

Rail or rails may refer to:* Guard rail, for safety or support* Handrail or hand rail, on a stairway* Rallidae, the group of birds called rails...
.

es are used today for low-value bulk items, as the cost of hauling goods by barge is very low.

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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 barge measures 195 feet by 35 feet (59.4 m by 10.6 m), and can carry up to 1,500 tons of cargo. As an example, on June 26, 2006, a 565-ton catalytic cracking

Cracking (chemistry)

In petroleum geology and chemistry, cracking is the process whereby complex organic compound molecules such as kerogens or heavy hydrocarbons are broken down into simpler molecules by the breaking of carbon-carbon chemical bond in the precursors....
unit reactor was shipped by barge from the Tulsa Port of Catoosa

Tulsa Port of Catoosa

The Tulsa Port of Catoosa is located near the city of Catoosa, Oklahoma in Rogers County, Oklahoma, just inside the municipal fenceline of Tulsa, Oklahoma....
in Oklahoma

Oklahoma

Oklahoma is a U.S. state and a sovereignty located in the South Central United States and Southern United States of the United States of America ....
to a refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi

Pascagoula, Mississippi

Pascagoula is a city in Jackson County, Mississippi, Mississippi, United States. It is the principal city of the Pascagoula, Mississippi Pascagoula metropolitan area, as a part of the Gulfport, Mississippi–Biloxi, Mississippi–Pascagoula, Mississippi Gulfport-Biloxi-Pascagoula combined statistical area....
. 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

Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the costliest Atlantic hurricane, as well as one of the five deadliest, in the history of the United States....
). Of the reactor's 700 mile journey, only about 40 miles 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.

Types of barges

Barracks barge
Car float
Car float

A railroad car float is an unpowered barge with rail tracks mounted on its deck. It is used to move railroad cars across water obstacles, or to locations they could not otherwise go, and is pushed or towed by a tugboat....
Dutch barge
Dutch barge

Dutch barges are flat bottom boats, originally used for cargo carrying in the Netherlands, many of which have now been converted for pleasure or residential use....
Dry bulk cargo barge
Dry bulk cargo barge

A dry bulk cargo barge is a barge designed to carry freight such as coal, finished steel or its ingredients, cereal, sand or gravel, and similar materials....
Hopper barge
Hopper barge

Hopper barge is a kind of non-mechanical ship or vessel that cannot move around by itself, unlike some other types of barges. Designed to carry materials, like rock , sand, soil and rubbish, for dumping into the ocean, a river or lake for land reclamation....
Jackup barge
Lighter
Lighter (barge)

A lighter is a type of flat-bottomed barge used to transfer goods to and from moored ships. Lighters were traditionally unpowered and were moved and steered using long oars called ?sweeps,? with their motive power provided by water currents....
and Dumb steel lighter
Liquid cargo barge
Liquid cargo barge

Liquid cargo barges are barges that transport petrochemicals, such as styrene, benzene and methanol; liquid fertilizer, including anhydrous ammonia; refined products, including gasoline, diesel and jet fuel; black oil products, such as asphalt, No....
Log barge
Oil barge and Dumb steel oil barge
Pleasure 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....
Power barge
Power Barge

A power barge is a power plant installed on a deck barge.The type of power plants include; single or multiple gas turbines; reciprocating diesel and gas engines; boilers or nuclear reactors....
Royal barge (e.g. Thailand's royal barges
Thailand's Royal Barge Procession

Thailand Royal Barge Procession is a ceremony of both religious and monarchy significance which has been taking place for nearly 700 years. The exquisitely crafted Royal Barges are a blend of craftsmanship and traditional Thai art....
)
Row barge
Sand barge
Severn trow
Trow

A trow was a type of cargo boat found in the past on the River Severn in Great Britain and used to transport goods. The Mast could be taken down so that the trow could go under bridges, such as the bridge at Worcester and the many bridges up and downstream....
Thames sailing barge
Thames sailing barge

A Thames sailing barge was a type of commercial sailing boat common on the River Thames in London in the 19th century. The flat-bottomed barges were perfectly adapted to the Thames Estuary, with its shallow waters and narrow rivers....
Tom Pudding
Tom Pudding

Tom Pudding was the name given to the tub boats on the Aire and Calder Navigation, introduced in 1863 and used until 1985, which were a very efficient means of transferring and transporting coal from the open cast collieries of the South Yorkshire coalfield near Stanley Ferry to the port of Goole, competing with rail....
Vehicular barge

On the Great British canal system, the term 'barge' is used to describe a boat wider than a narrowboat

Narrowboat

A narrowboat or narrow boat is a boat of a distinctive design, made to fit the narrow canals of England and Wales....
, and the people who move barges are often known as lightermen

Lightermen

Lightermen were workers who transferred goods between ships and quays, aboard flat-bottomed barges called Lighter s. They were one of the most characteristic groups of workers in London Docklands during the heyday of the Port of London, but their trade was eventually rendered largely obsolete by changes in shipping technology....
. In the United States, deckhands perform the labor and are supervised by a leadman 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.

Poles are used on barges to fend off the barge as it nears other vessels or a wharf. These are often called 'pike poles'. On shallow canals in the United Kingdom, long punt poles

Punt (boat)

This article concentrates on the history and development of punts and punting in England, for other usages see Norfolk punt and the general disambiguation pages at punt and punter....
are used to manoeuvre or propel the barge.

Etymology

Barge is attested from 1300, from Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance languages dialect continuum spoken in territories which span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from around 1000 to 1300....
barge, from Vulgar Latin

Vulgar Latin

Vulgar Latin is a blanket term covering the popular dialects and sociolects of the Latin which diverged from each other in the early Middle Ages, evolving into the Romance languages by the 9th century....
barga. The word originally could refer to any small boat; the modern meaning arose around 1480. Bark
Barque

A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel....
"small ship" is attested from 1420, from Old French barque, from Vulgar Latin barca (400 AD). The more precise meaning "three-masted ship" arose in the 17th century, and often takes the French spelling for disambiguation. Both are probably derived from the Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
barica, from Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
baris "Egyptian boat", from Coptic

Coptic language

Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the final stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic languages language spoken in Egypt until at least the seventeenth century....
bari "small boat", hieroglyphic 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 long poles used to maneuver or propel a barge have given rise to the saying "I wouldn't touch that [subject/thing] with a barge pole." This is a variation on the phrase "I wouldn't touch that with a [insert length] pole." It appears that the association with barge poles came after the phrase was in use. Modern usage uses a 'ten-foot' pole, but the earliest instances in print involve a forty-foot pole, which is improbably long for operating a barge.

Image gallery

External links

DBA The Barge Association
, Brooklyn
Brooklyn

Brooklyn is one of the five Borough of New York City, located at the western end of Long Island. An independent city until its consolidation with New York in 1898, Brooklyn is New York City's most populous borough, with 2.5 million residents, and second largest in area....
, NY, USA

Barge

Modern use

Types of barges

Etymology

Image gallery

See also

External links