Also, neither of us has ever heard the term “hotel”. It’s accommodation block. Who calls it hotel?
[quote=“Princhester, post:17, topic:731671”]
Or “accommodation block”. I’ve never heard the term “hotel”. I suspect that’s a US term.
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Not an US term. When I was shipping it was called a house.
OP back again. Thanks again for the further information. Had no idea it would spark this much comment!
To clear up a couple of things, and to add a bit more information:
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I couldn’t tell you, unfortunately, how low in the water the vessel was riding. I’m sure it had either no containers on board or at most one layer (or part of one layer). It could have had something long and low and heavy on the deck of the ship, or below the deck, but it looks from the photos that this vessel typically carries containers, and it wasn’t doing that.
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The *Stidia *really IS going to Algeria from Albany, and it really IS an Algerian ship. Most of you understand this, but just to forestall any further unnecessary theorizing…
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I checked the Port of Albany website. It’s really not a very busy port at all with regard to oceangoing carriers. They kept an online record of these ships in 2012 and 2013; looks like about 50 ships at most per year, so only about one a week on average. Each ship has a page of its own telling details about the visit. Here is one for the Nomadic Hjellestad (love that name!): http://www.portofalbany.us/images/pdf/Ships2013/MV%20Nomadic%20Hjellestad.pdf.
The record shows that it arrived from Brazil with a cargo of windmill blades and then left two days later for Canada with…no cargo at all. Bearing out what Mighty Girl says above. (The port also handles wood pulp, molasses, gasoline, “GE Cargo” [obviously a catch-all term], and most of all grain.) The listing ends with 2013, unfortunately.
- I almost hate to mention this because it’s fun to watch a new word or phrase in the making but…The term “hotel” is not a US-ism or any other -ism as far as I know. I called it a “hotel-like structure” in the OP because I had no idea what else to call it, and from a distance it strongly resembled a Hampton Inn (which it clearly wasn’t, but that’s what it looked like). I’m fine with “house” or “accommodation block” or “superstructure,” but I have to admit that at this point I’m kind of drawn to calling it a hotel.
Thanks again–all this stuff I never suspected! Another ship from the fleet is due in today to Albany, coming from Gilbraltar, and I do plan to go out paddling this afternoon. The odds of my seeing this particular ship are pretty slender, but if I do, I’ll try to do a better job of observation this time around!
To be clear, it wasn’t carrying containers on deck. Bear in mind that most of this vessel’s carrying capacity - including for containers - is below deck.
Thanks.
FTR, I was in port operations, the husband is the navigator. I checked with him because things change in a decade and I didn’t want to give outdated info (maybe people started calling it a hotel since I left. I kinda like the term).
I’d be surprised if the OP’s description of the superstructure as “hotel-like” had made it all the way through the shipping industry to your husband.
To the poster who surmised it must be an American term: it is the OP’s own invention and is meant only to describe the physical shape.
When I said “hotel” I meant “house”. I think using the term “house” for the superstructure must be a US term.
There is an exception to the Jones Act for undocumented barges.
The Jones Act requires that for voyages from U.S. port to U.S. port (called “coastwise trade”), the vessel must be U.S. flagged, owned by a U.S. citizen, and demonstrate a continuous chain of title of being owned by U.S. citizens. That means if a vessel was ever sold to a foreign national, it would never be eligible for U.S. coastwise trade again, even if it was U.S.-owned.
There are between four and a billion quirks and exceptions to the Jones act. One exception is for undocumented barges in coastwise trade. Because they are undocumented, an owner could never hope to demonstrate a continuous chain of title.
So if your Algerian barge is just going up and down the coast or the Hudson (engaged in coastwise trade), and is otherwise qualified to be documented with a coastwise endorsement (and honestly, I suspect no one is checking), it fits into an exception to the Jones Act. The applicable law is 46 U.S.C. 67.9©.
I am not your admiralty lawyer.
If you hang around this board long enough, someone will ask a weird enough question that you can contribute your oddball knowledge.