What is a Barge?

Barges are the simplest form of floating vessels, and they are used for a wide variety of purposes, from general-purpose cargo carriage to heavy lifting of structures such as offshore platforms. 

Barges are flat-bottomed, box-shaped or nearly box-shaped vessels with simple configurations. They usually lack a superstructure and most features we see on other ships. They are broad in shape and have typically low draft values. 

Most barges are meant for plying on inland waterways, but some are also seagoing for short distances. 

Barges have a very low range and are unsuitable for variable and erratic deep-sea conditions. Barges are either self-propelled (usually a low-power propulsion configuration) or do not have any means of propulsion.

In the latter case, the barges are usually handled by other vessels or are meant to remain stationary in a place as required. 

The design of barge hulls remains one of the starting points of naval architecture for understanding basic design theory. For all practical purposes, a barge is free of any curvature or has a minimum amount of curvature. 

In other words, they are characterised by straight edges that make them appear boxy. Owing to their structure, they have broader shoulders, waterlines, and angles of entry.

Their line plan appears as a set of uniform and parallel lines that indicate their bluff form and deviations from curvilinear hull line patterns, which are customary in all kinds of ships. 

The boxy, wide, and bluff hull form of barges makes them essentially low-speed vessels, and as such, their design is not conducive to dealing with wave and frictional resistance values. 

However, speed is the least important factor for barges as all their operations have flexible speed requirements. Another problem with barges from a design point of view is that since they are based on payload, i.e., they are required to carry the maximum amount of weight, and, as mentioned earlier, they have low draft values. 

In brief, let us now look at the simple hull forms of some common types of vessels: 

Deck Barges are the most common type. They have a wide, flat bottom, straight edges, and a typical rake in the bow and stern, known as a double-raked configuration.

This means they are sloped by a sharp angle from the bottom plate to the deck. Internally, they are stiffened suitably by longitudinal and transverse members of scantlings based on size. 

As the payload is to be rested on the deck, the deck plating is of higher scantlings and robustly strengthened with deep members. For all practical purposes, even though they carry the payload on the deck, they have inner compartments for ballast, fresh water, and fuel oils in case of a propelled configuration. Most of these deck barges appear perfectly symmetric about the longitudinal and transverse axes of symmetry. 

Crane barges are often used to house heavy machinery like cranage for operating on land (coastal regions or river banks), offshore areas, etc. Depending on the type of cranage, they are robustly built and broader than conventional deck cranes. 

They are heavily strengthened with additional stiffening where the cranage load is being directly transferred, that is, in the way of the structure’s legs or spuds. 

Crane barges have the least draft but are designed to maintain the minimum draft during worst-case loading scenarios, like when the crane is not only operating but also lifting heavy weights. 

Hopper and shale barges are considered somewhat like bulk carriers in terms of utility but on a much smaller scale. They have a double-hull construction, and the compartments inside store items ranging from coal to stone chips to grains to ore and timber.

The holds are covered by hatch covers. They may be single-raked or double-raked. Their internal arrangements are characterised by central, wing, and hopper-side tankage, like in tankers or bulkers. 

You might also like to read-

• What is an Offshore Barge? 
• Different Types of Barges – Uses And Differences
• Exploring the Career of a Barge Engineer
• Crane Barges Explained – Everything You Wanted To Know
• What Are Jack Up Barges – Everything You Ever Wanted To Know

About Author

Subhodeep is a Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering graduate. Interested in the intricacies of marine structures and goal-based design aspects, he is dedicated to sharing and propagation of common technical knowledge within this sector, which, at this very moment, requires a turnabout to flourish back to its old glory.

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