What is a sailing barge?
A sailing barge is a flat-bottom, shallow draft boat propelled by sails.
Traditional barges are mostly flat-bottomed inland vessels and do not have mechanical propulsion, These barges are either pulled by tugboats or pushed by pusher boats.
What are the types of barges?
Dumb barge
Dumb barges are traditional barges without mechanical propulsion. Many dumb barges rely on poles, oars, or tides to move. Some of them are pulled by tugboats or pushed by pusher boats.
Dutch barge
Dutch barge is a bigger version of the Thames sailing barge
The Thames sailing barge
The Thames sailing barge is a kind of sailboat that is used in the River Thames in London. The Thames sailing barge gets popular because it can fit in narrow and shallow water.
Scow barge
Scow barge is a smaller version of the Thames barge
here is a good video to show you a Thames sailing barge
What is the difference between a barge and a boat?
Commonly, a barge is a flat-bottomed boat with no engine. Most barges are dumb barges with no power and are pushed or pulled by tugboats.
Barges are used to transport heavy or bulk goods, such as grain, coal, steel, or livestock. Barges are used in shallow or narrow waterways such as rivers or canals.
The vast majority of boats are self-powered and can move inland water or offshore.
Generally speaking, boats carry a small number of people or goods.
What is the difference between a barge and a tugboat?
A barge is basically a box-shaped boat with no power. A barge has to push or pulled by a tugboat to move around the water.
A tugboat has an engine and can be self-propel. a tugboat is responsible for the safe passage of the barge.
Is a barge a ferry?
The ferry is a self-propelled vehicle that typically transports people from point a to point b on inland water.
A barge is normally a wider, flat-bottomed boat without power, that mainly transports heavy, bulky goods.
Both barges and ferries travel on the canal, rivers, and mainly inland waterways.
Most barges need tugboats to pull or push them, while a ferry can propel by its own power.
Barges mainly transport goods, however, ferries transport people most of the time.
Does a barge have a captain?
There is always a captain on a big barge. The main purpose of a barge captain is to navigate the barge through different waterways and monitor the loading and unloading of cargo.
A barge captain has good knowledge of operations and local waterways. Inland waterway is tricky, one area may have shallow water, and the other area may have deep and narrow water, so the barge captain needs to have good local marine knowledge to keep the barge safe.
The barge captain also needs to monitor the loading and unloading process of the goods, and coordinate with crews from tugboats, terminals, dock workers, etc.
How much weight can a barge support?
A typical US barge measures 200 feet long, and 35 feet wide and can carry up to 1500 tons of cargo. This cargo amount equals roughly 15 railroad cars or 60 truckloads.
A standard European barge measures 251 feet long, and 37 feet wide and can carry up to 2450 tons of cargo.
Are barges safe?
Most barges only travel inland water so it is safe at most times. but there is also no shortage of emergencies happening on a barge.
The common accidents that happened on a barge are slips, falls, and fires. A major accident is a collision between barges and other objects.
Barges are used to transport heavy and bulk goods so it is full of stuff on the deck. It is easy to slip, trip, or fall if the surface is not clean and tidy. Fire is another common accident that happened on a barge.
Because barges carry heavy cargo so it takes them a couple of miles to stop completely. It is dangerous to navigate close to a barge without precaution. That is why the tugboat used to pull barges stays far away from the barge.
How far does a barge go underwater?
How deep a barge sits in the water varies greatly on what kind of cargo it carries, and what waterway it travels.
When a barge size 200 feet long, and 35 feet wide is fully loaded, it would sink in the water 7 ~9 feet.
Different channels or rivers have different limitations of the draft. A barge has to load less or more to not exceed the standard draft.
Can a barge go on the sea?
Barges are designed to travel on inland waterways, they are not designed to go on the sea.
Most barges do not have power so they are either traveled by poles, oars, sails or pulled by steamed tugboats.
How fast does a barge go?
The average speed of a barge is about 7 knots.
Barges are designed to carry more goods than speed, so barges have wide, flat bottoms and rectangular shapes.
There are many factors that affect a barge’s speed, such as current, wind, and type of cargo on board. The current can push or drag the barge. Wind changes constantly because of trees, and buildings around inland water, and so do barges’ speed.
Heavy cargos such as coal or gravel also have a big influence on a barge’s speed.
Why are barges still used?
Barges are not only still used but also a major method of moving agricultural, mineral products within the united states.
Cheap to use
There are no power on barges so barges do not burn fuel. It is much cheap to use barges than trucks or trains.
Barges can carry a big volume of goods because of their rectangular shape.
Flexible to use
Barges can navigate in shallow or narrow waterways such as rivers, canals that difficult for cargo ships.
Environment friendly
Dumb barges navigate through the waterways by poles, oars, or sails so they do not produce any carbodioxide or exhaust emission.
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Resources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_barge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barge
