BARGES and CANAL CRAFT. The name barge was originally applied to a small sailing vessel, but afterwards came into general use for a flat-bottomed boat used for carrying goods on inland waterways. On canals, barges are usually towed, but are sometimes fitted with some kind of engine; the men in charge of them are known as bargees. On tidal rivers barges are often provided with masts and sails ("sailing barges"), or in default of being towed they drift with the current, guided by a long oar or oars ("dumb-barges"). Barges used for unloading, or loading, the cargo of ships in harbours are sometimes called "lighters" (from the verb "to light," to relieve of a load). A State barge was a heavy, often highly ornamented vessel used for carrying passengers on occasions of State ceremonials. The college barges at Oxford are houseboats moored in the river for the use of mem bers of the college rowing clubs.
Owing to the fact that there are over 4o different canals and rivers in the United Kingdom with locks of varying size, it is necessary to construct barges of many different shapes and sizes to navigate them, ranging, on the canals, from 20 to 16o tons. On the Continent of Europe, in France and Belgium, it is possible to transport goods by canal at a much lower cost, for the locks are more or less standardized to enable barges of 26o to 28o tons to navigate nearly the whole of the waterways down to the principal sea ports.
Whereas most of the canal towing in bygone days was done by horses, the usual method now is either by steam or motor tug, or by barges fitted with semi-diesel engines, powerful enough to tow several other barges.
The common principle of all types of barges and lighters is to have as large a hatchway as possible and as small a deck area as possible, to save what is called "cupboard space" under deck in the hold, and to make for easy and quick handling, and therefore cheapness, in loading and discharging the cargoes.
The ordinary Thames river lighters range from 8o to 30o tons; in some instances they are 40o tons or more; on the Humber the craft carry from about 6o to 220 tons.
Barges worked in Antwerp and Rotterdam and the neighbour ing rivers and docks are built up to 3,00o tons, which again makes for cheaper transport. These larger craft are built much lighter than English ones. As they are always afloat they need not be built so strongly as the barges that use English rivers, for the latter have to be strong enough to withstand loading and discharging whilst lying aground.
Thames lighters are a pattern to themselves, being "swim ended" to assist the lighter's speed ("swim" meaning to glide). That is, the bottom of the lighter is turned up at both the f or ward and after ends to meet the deck at an angle of 3 5 ° to 4o ° ; these ends are therefore called the forward swim and after swim, and the after swim has a "budget" (or what may be termed a "fixed rudder") worked down the centre, formed through the con tinuation of the keel plate to the extreme end of the swim ; this is filled in up to the swim.
It is owing to this budget that these craft can navigate in a straight line whether being rowed (the lighterman's term is "to drive") or towed ; a rudder becomes unnecessary. By a Thames regulation a tug must not tow more than six lighters, two abreast.
Many Types Needed.—The bargeowner, like the shipowner, has to fit his vessels to suit the trade of the times. Thus in the port of London we find barges fitted as insulator craft to load meat, butter, fruit, etc., out of the steamer that is fitted with re frigerators or chilling plant ; while, again, there are tank barges fitted for the carriage of spirit. These craft have to be built and classed by Lloyds to pass the Port of London Authority rules. Then there are tank craft for vegetable oils, such as coconut or palm-kernel oil, which solidify when cold; these are fitted with steam coils to enable the oil to be heated for pumping when being discharged. The same applies to the tank craft used for heavy fuel oil and lubricating oil. Also special lighters are fitted with locking arrangements on their hatchways to protect dutiable goods; these have to be passed and licensed by the board of customs.
There is one point about the Thames-built wooden craft, both lighters and sailing barges, that is not found in other builds ; the plank seams are always rabbited, that is, they have half lap joints fitted tight, which never need caulking. The steel barge, however, is rapidly displacing the wooden barge.
A large proportion of the craft on the Humber are rigged ; and those fitted with the square sail are termed keels. Others, fitted with mainsail and foresail, are termed sloops. These are all fitted with leeboards the same as the Thames sailing barges. Prior to the World War quite a number of Humber craft, slightly larger than the sloops, and ketch rigged, used to work up and down to east coast sea ports and were called "billy boys," but these now seem to have been displaced by the Thames coasting barges.
Thames Sailing Barges.—The most interesting type of barge is no doubt the Thames sailing barge, which may be divided into two classes, the river sailing barge of say 8o to 18o tons, and the coasting sailing barge, which ranges up to 30o tons.
The river-craft ply in the Thames and estuary between Maid stone, Chatham, Faversham, Sittingbourne, and Southend to Lon don. The coasting barges trade from London to the east and south coast ports, and all the near continental ports of Holland, Belgium, France and the Channel islands.
The coasting barges have replaced the schooner and ketch on the last-mentioned trade routes, as more economically worked vessels requiring fewer hands. A 3oo-ton barge requires only four hands against six or seven on a schooner of the same size. It is able to make a light passage without ballast, which a schooner cannot do, and draws three to four feet less water, which means that the coasting barge can get to a shallow berth, thus saving the cost of transshipment into smaller lighters and extra handling of goods.
The Thames coasting barge is sprit-sail rigged like the river barge, but whereas the river barges carry a mainsail, topsail, f ore sail, mizzen and flying jib, the coasting barge is rigged with a bow sprit to enable it to carry bowsprit jibs of various sizes to suit the weather conditions. Coasting barges also carry squaresails or balloon foresails, for running bef ore the wind.
As will be seen from the pictures of the coasting barge, the sprit is a very long spar of about 6oft. or a trifle over, and about 13 to i4in. at the sling. It should also be noted that the main vangs (the stays from the sprit end are called vangs) are worked from the sprit-end down to the quarter, and the rolling vangs are worked from the sprit-end to a chain plate on the side, at about the fore end of the f ore hatch, so that when a barge is sailing in a seaway the lee rolling yang is always hove tight, and thus saves the sprit from rolling inboard when in a wind, or gybing when run ning dead before the wind. It is not often that a sprit is carried away at sea if the vangs are properly attended to; there are more accidents with gaff sails in a seaway than with sprit sails. Coast ing barges are built with more sheer, higher coamings and bul warks, and with other improvements to make them more sea worthy.
The leeboards on sailing barges are carried abreast of the main mast, which is about one-third of the barge's length from the stem, and answer the same purpose as the keel of a sailing yacht or other round-bottom sailing vessel, which is to stop the barge mak ing leeway when sailing on a wind or reaching. The lee leeboard is kept down and the weather leeboard is hove up. When a barge is running before the wind both leeboards are hove up as they are not needed. A sailing barge captain gets used to his craft very quickly, and often improves her sailing qualities by shifting the ieeboards a little forward or aft as needed. Should his craft be faint headed (i.e., one that falls away too far on a wind) he shifts the leeboards slightly forward, or should his craft be hard headed (i.e., if his vessel wants to come up into the wind when on a tight sheet) he shifts them slightly aft. Here again the design of the barge is a large factor in her sailing qualities.
The skill of sailing barge designing is to be able to work a flat bottom out to the bow and stern with a fair chine line to both fore and after runs. This chine in itself, if carried out properly, is a great assistance to the barge when sailing to windward. The Thames sailing barges all have a transome stern.
American barge owners have followed the continental practice to some extent in the application of various motor drives, par ticularly in the use of the semi-Diesel engine. The most recent development is with the use of electric drives on barges operating in the Erie canal in New York State. Steel barges, with a cargo capacity of 2,80o tons, have been equipped with two 375 h.p., six-cylinder, four-cycle Diesel engines directly connected to a 25o k.w. generator operating at a speed of 25o revolutions per minute. An unusual feature is that both engines are installed with the axis of the crankshaft athwartships instead of longi tudinally. The control of the barge, which can attain a speed of Io m. per hour, is entirely in the hands of the captain in the pilot house. (W. J. E.)