In the 1960s, the American shipbuilding engineer Jerome L. Goldman developed the LASH system and founded the Lighter Aboard Ship Corporation to market the patented system . The background to the development was the very long port lay times that were customary at the time, which should be shortened with the high throughput of the LASH system of over 1000 tons per hour. Even before the first LASH ships Acadia Forest and Atlantic Forest were put into service in 1969 and 1970, several US shipping companies ordered a series of eleven LASH ships of the MARAD Design C8-S-81b from the Avondale shipyard in New Orleans. This was busy with the construction of the series from 1970 to 1973.
The shipping company Lykes Lines from New Orleans pursued a slightly different concept of a light ship and created the design for the SeaBee ship together with the shipbuilding office JJ Henry & Company from New York . In contrast to the LASH ship, larger barges are used, which are lifted in pairs on deck with a 2000 ton elevator (a type of lift) and placed on an internal sliding system. Lykes then ordered a series of three Seabee ships from the General Dynamics shipyard in Quincy. When they were built, they were the largest general cargo ships under the US flag and the most powerful single-screw cargo ships in the world.
The trio was operated by Lykes until 1986 and then returned to MARAD , which assigned the three ships to the Ready Reserve Fleet as Cape M-Class Heavy Lift Barge Carriers . Two of the ships are still actively held in Alameda, while the Cape Mendocino has been in the Beaumont Reserve Fleet as a parts carrier since October 2011 to maintain the two remaining units .
The ships
MARAD Design C8-S-82a
Surname
IMO no.
Build number
completion
Later names and whereabouts
Doctor Lykes
?
18th
1972
1986 RRF Cape Mendocino (AKR-5064)
Almeria Lykes
7205958
19th
1972
1986 RRF Cape May (TAKR 5063)
Tillie Lykes
7223314
20th
1973
1986 RRF Cape Mohican (T-AKR 5065)
literature
Witthöft, Hans Jürgen: Piggyback across the lake. The barge carrier family . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 1987, ISBN 3-7822-0275-9 .
