Ships – Mother ship – floating landing platform – and harbor – Vessel carrier
Patent
1982-11-30
1984-12-18
Blix, Trygve M.
Ships
Mother ship, floating landing platform, and harbor
Vessel carrier
114259, 114 72, 114125, 114256, 414103, 414138, B63B 3540, B63B 3528
Patent
active
044885032
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to a method of loading a cargo transport ship with water-borne cargo-carrying vessels preparatory to transportation of such cargo-carrying vessels by the ship, which method includes the steps of flooding a storage space within the transport ship and floating the cargo-carrying vessels into that space. The invention also relates to a transport ship equipped for loading by such method.
In recent years the search for more economic modes of cargo transportation has led to the introduction of designs of sea-going transport ships with facility for taking a number of loaded barges on board. Such systems of transportation afford a number of advantages, notably in simplifying the transfer of cargo from inland sites to an ocean transport ship via inland waterways and the eventual transport of the cargo to coastal or inland delivery points. By eliminating the off-loading of cargo from the barges into the transport ship and vice versa, important labour and energy cost savings are achieved and the speed and general convenience of the water-borne transportation exercise is enhanced.
In one known type of barge-carrying system, loaded barges are lifted from the water by lifting equipment at the stern of the transport ship and conveyed along the cargo decks by a conveyor (see e.g. the article entitled "Doctor Lykes" in Shipping World and Shipbuilder, September 1972, page 1045).
More recently, cargo transport ships utilising a so-called float-on cargo-loading principle have been built. These ships have a self-lowering capability whereby a cargo space can be flooded through the stern to allow direct access of floating cargo (see the article on the container freighter "Condock" in Mak Toplaterne Diesel Engine Journal, November 1980, page 37). By enabling cargo to be floated into the ship, the need for expensive lifting gear is eliminated. After loading the barges onto the transport ship it is debalasted to cause it to rise in the water and the cargo space is drained. The barges then lie in the transport ship as in a dry dock.
The number of barges of a given size which can be docked in a transport ship in this way is dependent on the length and width of the cargo space. In designing the transport ship the extent to which these dimensions can be increased is limited by numerous factors including of course the maximum permissible length and beam of the ship.
In order to permit a greater number of barges to be carried proposals have been made to make the transport ship of double-deck form and enable it to be immersed to the draught required for docking barges onto the upper as well as the lower deck. It has also been proposed to provide for storage of barges in superimposed tiers for providing a transport ship with an internal hydraulic water-lift whereby barges floated into the ship at a given level can be raised within the ship and suspended from the overlying deck. Further barges can then be stowed in an underlying tier. This proposal avoids the need for a second deck and avoids the need for the docking draught of the transport ship to be increased for taking on the upper tier of barges. The foregoing proposals are outlined in "Shipping World & Shipbuilder", June 1974, pp 599-602.
The present invention provides a method of cargo vessel transportation by a transport ship utilising the float-on loading principle, which method enables a more favourable relationship to be attained between the cargo carrying capacity of the transport ship and its main dimensions.
A method according to the present invention is defined in claim 1 hereof. The method is characterised in that use is made of closed cargo-carrying vessels which can be upended in the water without spillage of cargo from or entry of water into the vessels, and in that the vessels are thus upended and are brought in upended state into storage locations in said storage space where they are retained in upended state for transportation.
It is an important advantage of this method that many more cargo-carrying vessels can be carried than would be possible
REFERENCES:
patent: 2513004 (1950-06-01), Cooley
patent: 3400681 (1968-09-01), Clay
patent: 3559787 (1971-02-01), Caillet
patent: 3738302 (1973-06-01), Flajole
Blix Trygve M.
Young Patrick W.
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