UK-BASED Frebs Marine International claims its Universal Cargo System will solve the problem of having a shortage of feeder ships and crews to run them, as well as dramatically change the container industry supply chain.
The industry has long observed a troubling long-term trend that containerships are becoming larger while the number of feeder containerships to serve them has been either stagnant or falling, according to a SeaIntel report that forecasts the ratio of feeder vessels to large vessels would decline to 5.4 by 2020 from 7.9 at present.
The Universal Cargo System is based on an integrated mothership and barge concept, where the former is semi-submersible and will enable the barges to float on and off while it is anchored in deeper water offshore from smaller ports, reported Colchester's Seatrade Maritime News.
The company believes its system can provide an alternative to the traditional system of feeder ships serving hub ports where large mainline vessels call and have containers transshipped to them by conventional means.
It believes that the key to the system's success will be its use of barges, which can be self-powered and autonomous, which can load containers as well as bulk cargoes.
Each of these barges is estimated to be able to carry 600 TEU and a mothership could load from 10 to up to 30 of these barges. This would give it a theoretical capacity of between 6,000 TEU and 18,000 TEU, bringing it almost into the same league as some of the biggest ultra large container ships (ULCS) now in service.
However, Frebs Marine CEO Michael Freeland said his the plans were so far only theoretical. 'We have not yet employed a naval architect to verify the maximum quantity of TEU or volume of bulk cargos which a barge can hold,' he said.
The industry has long observed a troubling long-term trend that containerships are becoming larger while the number of feeder containerships to serve them has been either stagnant or falling, according to a SeaIntel report that forecasts the ratio of feeder vessels to large vessels would decline to 5.4 by 2020 from 7.9 at present.
The Universal Cargo System is based on an integrated mothership and barge concept, where the former is semi-submersible and will enable the barges to float on and off while it is anchored in deeper water offshore from smaller ports, reported Colchester's Seatrade Maritime News.
The company believes its system can provide an alternative to the traditional system of feeder ships serving hub ports where large mainline vessels call and have containers transshipped to them by conventional means.
It believes that the key to the system's success will be its use of barges, which can be self-powered and autonomous, which can load containers as well as bulk cargoes.
Each of these barges is estimated to be able to carry 600 TEU and a mothership could load from 10 to up to 30 of these barges. This would give it a theoretical capacity of between 6,000 TEU and 18,000 TEU, bringing it almost into the same league as some of the biggest ultra large container ships (ULCS) now in service.
However, Frebs Marine CEO Michael Freeland said his the plans were so far only theoretical. 'We have not yet employed a naval architect to verify the maximum quantity of TEU or volume of bulk cargos which a barge can hold,' he said.