Barge carrier (LASH/BACAT)

A barge carrier is a mother ship that loads loaded barges (lighters) instead of containers, so river cargo crosses open sea without transshipment at the port edge. Three systems were built. LASH (Lighter Aboard Ship), designed by Jerome Goldman and first sailed by the Acadia Forest in September 1969, lifts about 80-ton barges aboard with a gantry crane riding the deck. SEABEE (Sea Barge), from Avondale in 1969, raises larger 150-ton barges on a 2,000-ton stern elevator and stows 38 of them on three decks. BACAT (Barge Catamaran), a Danish 1973 design, carried smaller 140-ton lighters between northern Europe and Britain. High capital cost and slow loading ended the type; SEABEE and BACAT are no longer in service.