Lighter (barge)
Encyclopedia
A lighter is a type of flat-bottomed barge
Barge
A barge is a flat-bottomed boat, built mainly for river and canal transport of heavy goods. Some barges are not self-propelled and need to be towed by tugboats or pushed by towboats...

 used to transfer goods and passengers to and from moored ships. Lighters were traditionally unpowered and were moved and steered using long oars called "sweeps," with their motive power provided by water currents. They were operated by highly skilled workers called lightermen
Lightermen
Lightermen were workers who transferred goods between ships and quays, aboard flat-bottomed barges called lighters in the Port of London.-History:...

 and were a characteristic sight in London's docks until about the 1960s, when technological changes made lightering
Lightering
Lightering is the process of transferring cargo between vessels of different sizes, usually between a barge and a bulker or oil tanker. Lightering is undertaken to reduce a vessel's draft in order to enter port facilities which cannot accept very large ocean-going vessels...

 largely redundant.

The name itself is of uncertain origin, but is believed to possibly derive from an old Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

 or German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 word, lichten (to lighten or unload). In Dutch, the word lichter is still used for (smaller) ships that take over goods from larger ships.

The word lighter is still used in the modern ship type: Lighter Aboard Ship
Lighter Aboard Ship
The lighter aboard ship system refers to the practice of loading barges aboard a larger vessel for transport. It was developed in response to a need to transport lighters, a type of unpowered barge, between inland waterways separated by open seas...

 (LASH).

The lighter barge gave rise to the "Lighter Tug" - a small, maneuverable type of harbour tug
Tugboat
A tugboat is a boat that maneuvers vessels by pushing or towing them. Tugs move vessels that either should not move themselves, such as ships in a crowded harbor or a narrow canal,or those that cannot move by themselves, such as barges, disabled ships, or oil platforms. Tugboats are powerful for...

. Lighter Tugs (themselves often simply referred to as "lighters") are designed for towing lighter barges. As such, they are smaller than a traditional harbour tug and lack the power or equipment to handle large ships.

Lighters, albeit powered ones, were proposed to be used in 2007 at Port Lincoln and Whyalla in South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...

 to load Capesize
Capesize
Capesize ships are cargo ships originally too large to transit the Suez Canal . To travel between oceans, such vessels used to have to pass either the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn. In effect Capesize reads as "unlimited"...

 ships which are too big for the shallower waters nearer the shore.

Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

 widely uses lighters in the midstream operations whereby lighters bring cargo, mostly containers, between different ocean going vessels and to/from terminals. Lighters in Hong Kong usually are equipped with cranes of 40-60 tonnes
Tonne
The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...

 capacity, and the largest ones can carry up to 300 teu
TEU
TEU may refer to:* Twenty-foot equivalent unit, a measure used for capacity in container transportation* Treaty on European Union, formal name of the Maastricht Treaty on the creation of the euro...

containers (empties). The lighters are not fitted with engine but towed by tug boats. In 2007, the midstream operators handle about 2 million TEUs; and another 5 million TEUs river trade cargo which are heavily dependent on lighters.
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