April 15, 1977 - Maritime Reporter and Engineering News

McAllister Expands Container Feeder Service With $2-Million 300-Foot Ocean Deck Barge

McAllister Brothers Inc. recently increased its container feeder barge service between New York, N.Y., Boston, Mass., and New Haven, Conn., with the christening of the McAllister Transporter, a 300-foot ocean deck barge with a capacity of 384 twenty-foot equivalent units (T.E.U.s).

McAllister currently operates a fleet of 35 barges for transport of containers, oil, and dry cargoes as part of its marine transportation operation which includes a fleet of 50 tugs for harbor work and ocean towing, serving the ports of New York; Philadelphia, Pa.; Norfolk, Va., and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Mrs. Roderick H. McAllister, wife of a grandson of Capt. James P. McAllister, founder of the company, christened the McAllister Transporter at the Atlantic Container Line (ACL) terminal, Port Elizabeth, N.J., where the barge loaded her first cargo. The ACL terminal is used as the New York terminus, and in Boston the feeder barges use the Massachusetts Port Authority's Mystic River terminal. The company, which inaugurated its once-a-week coastal feeder service with New England last year, has experienced full bookings in handling containers from the North Atlantic Conference, and now hopes its increased capacity will enable it to offer improved service to the Far Eastern Conference. It pointed out that lighterage service between the cities involved effects considerable savings in port charges for the shipper.

The vessel was built to American Bureau of Shipping classification A-l Barge Ocean Service and U.S. Coast Guard requirements.

Design concept of the McAllister Transporter was initiated by McAllister Brothers personnel under the direction of their marine supervisor, Donald C. Hankin. The shipbuilders, Seatrain Shipyards in Brooklyn, N.Y., completed the structural design and working plans and obtained the necessary agency approvals for construction.

Dimensions of the new $2-million barge are 300 feet in length, 72 feet in beam, 18 feet in depth of hold, with a loaded draft of 14 feet at maximum cargo capacity of 7,358 short tons.

A specially strengthened deck enables the vessel to carry either a 2,000-pound / square-foot uniformly distributed cargo, or 384 T.E.U.s, or a mixture of 40-foot and 20-foot containers. The container lashing system is in accordance with the latest state-ofthe- art.

Lighterage is no new operation for McAllister, which entered ma- Madisonrine transportation through the lighterage end of the business 113 years ago, when Captain McAllister bought his first sail lighter for New York harbor work. As the port grew, the company increased its fleet of lighters, along with its other operations, until at one point McAllister had a fleet of 150 barges working the port. However, the advent of new piers, bridges, and tunnels, and improved surface transportation caused the lighterage operation to taper off in the 1920s and 1930s.

The recent development of containerized shipments of cargo, however, has caused a resurgence in lighterage operations within norts and in container feeder services up and down the coast for the economical delivery and pickup of import-export freight, the company pointed out.

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