Biggest ship ever seen on Mississippi would leave no wake, haul load of 2,375 trucks | Evanoff

The ship line proposing to move ocean-bound cargo through the Port of Memphis would rely on the biggest ships ever put in service on the Mississippi River above Baton Rouge.

American Patriot Holdings LLC would employ an untried design never seen on the world’s rivers and yet conceived to haul as much cargo as 2,375 heavy-duty highway trucks while never churning up a dangerous wall of water in its wake.

Each "liner," as they are called, would leave a low wake in its path even though the ship would be 595 feet long, 134 feet wide, sit 9 feet deep in the river and displace 17,500 tons of water. Engines would send the vessel upstream at 13 mph.

A traditional 17,500-ton ocean-going freighter fighting the strong current at that speed would form a steep wave of water in its wake with the strength to tear away shoreline in the confined straits of a river even like the half-a-mile wide Mississippi at Memphis.

Rather than rely on a traditional craft, American Patriot, a startup venture formed by three former U.S. cargo ship line executives, bought a new design from Canadian naval architect Peter van Diepen’s firm, NaviForm Consulting & Research Ltd.

A test model was recently researched in Europe, and American Patriot has opened talks with bankers and investors about financing construction of four river ships in time to begin cargo service in 2023.

Bigger than the Queen

What is said to be the biggest steamboat ever put on the Mississippi is the American Queen, a 418-foot-long passenger ship in service currently. Its length exceeds the typical cotton-hauling steamboats of the 19th century by about 100 feet.

Van Diepen's design compared to the American Queen is about 177 feet longer, 45 feet wider and thus far an idea largely in blueprint form. It has never been built.

“We’re not making a blind leap of faith here,” said American Patriot executive Sal Litrico. “Our vessel has been through a numerous amount of testing in Germany.”

American Patriot made headlines last month, announcing a letter of intent was in hand with a county agency in Louisiana to explore building a $1 billion cargo terminal near the Gulf of Mexico. The terminal would load and unload ocean-going container ships moving through the recently expanded Panama Canal.

Containers unloaded at the terminal would go aboard American Patriot’s river ships for delivery to ports at Little Rock, Memphis, St. Louis and other river cities. The same ships would carry cargo containers downriver to the big terminal for loading aboard ocean ships bound for foreign ports. Plans call for Plaquemines Port Harbor & Terminal District to build the terminal on the Mississippi 50 miles from the Gulf.

Lots has been said about the Miami line aiming to challenge the railroads and truck fleets moving imports and exports between the inland cities and West Coast harbors. Less has been said about the actual river ships. Nothing like them has been tried before.

“To me it sounds pretty exciting. The biggest risk is the money. Can you get the money to build the ships?” said shipping consultant David Matsuda in Washington, former head of the U.S. Maritime Commission.  “It takes a lot of money to build a ship like this. These are assets designed to last 20, 30 years, maybe longer.”

Innovation has been slow in the U.S. maritime industry, where ship lines are spared competition from low-cost foreign rivals by the Jones Act, a federal law which requires American ship lines haul ocean cargo between U.S. ports.

Despite the maritime industry’s reputation, Matsuda figures American Patriot’s ambitious bid to launch a new business could spur investor interest. The novel ship itself would be worth examining.

The Van Diepen design not only scales back the wake. Low wake allows full speed using less power and in turn less fuel than a conventional diesel-powered ship. Another cost advantage would be the fuel. American Patriot’s ships would burn inexpensive liquid natural gas rather than diesel oil.

The cost of building four river ships could near $100 million, a large amount for a startup firm. Litrico said banks and private equity firms sought out American Patriot to discuss loans and investments. By the new year, a deal for financing should be in place, he said, and could make use of both loans and investments.

No stranger to high finance

While the company is a startup, one of the partners is no stranger to large financial deals. 

Once an engineering officer on merchant ships, Joseph Gehegan became head of oil producer Amerada Hess’ tug and barge fleet. U.S. Shipping Corp. bought the fleet. Gehegan became president of U.S. Shipping, which sold shares of stock to the public in 2004. He left eight years later and formed Marine Transportation Consultants LLC, which has built and chartered petroleum barges for Jones Act service between U.S. ports.

When he, Litrico and partner Robert McCormack began exploring the idea of a ship line on the Mississippi River, Gehegan picked the name American Patriot. In an interview, Gehegan said the firm might go public sometime in the future. That would entail selling stock to the public as a way to raise money to pay off loans, investors and the founders.

Until the startup venture came along, the idea of running ships on the river never moved beyond talk. Tug and barge lines haul commodities on the river, but ships need larger facilities similar to the railroad intermodal facilities able to move freight containers between trains and trucks.

A seaborne venture also requires a key terminal near the Gulf able to handle ocean-going ships. But no terminal network exists on the rivers for ships. Moreover, bridges on the Mississippi above Baton Rouge, Louisiana, bar passage to high-decked ocean freighters. 

With the Panama Canal’s recent widening, one of the largest hurdles began to come down. Plaquemines Parish officials began exploring the construction of a major terminal serving container ships coming through the canal. Gehegan found farm groups in the Midwest eager to export crops in containers downriver. Officials at the Port of Memphis and similar facilities in St. Louis and Arkansas showed interest in developing terminals to service the river ships.

And the partners bought the vessel design from NaviForm Consulting in Vancouver, British Columbia. The design covers two similar ships, one scaled for 2,375 cargo containers, the other 1,700. Both are flat and low vessels, not unlike a cardboard shoe box with a pointed front end. 

The new design houses steering station and living quarters toward the front of the vessel. The back end is open to hold cargo containers.

The design makes use of a technique meant to keep the wake from actually building up. Beams would be put in place to give the hull an extra measure of rigidity from front to back.

Just the other day, NaviForm's Peter Van Diepen sent an email explaining the rigid hull. It sounds brilliant. Told people along the river expressed concern about the damaging power of ship wakes, and asked how his 595-foot vessel reduces wake as its moves along, van Diepen went into detail:

“Even a single conventional hull would flex at high speed (bow wave pushes it up, stern wave pushes it up, trough in the middle of the hull pulls it down, hull flexes) and the resulting waves propagate. Waves represent energy wasted and visible to naked eye. Any waves generated by any hull means energy wasted.

“We have developed the Exoskeleton design, the structure external to the hull, in form of a system of beams that provide longitudinal strength and stiffness. Normally hull needs to be deep enough to provide that strength (but not stiffness, therefore it flexes) required by the classification societies. In our case, the beams raising to 50 ft above hull provide not only strength, already examined and approved by American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), but stiffness unheard of before.

“That allows this 600 ft long hull to be only 13 ft deep. A wafer only deep enough to keep the fully loaded vessel afloat. Less depth leaves more space for deck cargo, which explains how we managed to provide space for… 1,700 containers… on the same footprint that until now could only accommodate 750 (containers).”

Ted Evanoff, business columnist of The Commercial Appeal, can be reached at evanoff@commercialappeal.com and (901) 529-2292.