2020 Sales and Charters

Marcon International is pleased to report eight barges, nine vessels and a pair of winches sold to date this year, which brings us to 1,512 sale or charter transactions successfully completed since 1981.

McAllister Towing and Transportation Company of New York have sold their twin screw tug "Barbara McAllister" (ex- Bouchard Boys, T.J. Sheridan, T.M. 1, Ocean Star) to Mar-K Towing in Florida. Measuring 104.6' loa x 36.3' beam, the tug was built in 1969 at Halter Marine, LA. The unit is powered by twin EMD 16-645E2 creating a total of 3,900BHP and is fitted with an Intercon single drum 200 winch. The buyer intends to remove the upper pilothouse and use as a shipdocking tug. Marcon was the sole brokers in the transaction.

The three deck 1992 Westport built, twin screw passenger tour boat "Chinook" (ex- Chugach) was sold by Pacific Cruises Northwest to Puget Sound buyers. The boat measures 72' x 19.5' x 6.9' and is powered by Lugger 6170 main engines. The vessel is certified by USCG for service on Lakes, Bays and Sounds and limited Coastwise for 127 passengers. Construction is a laminated composite fiberglass with a raked, flared bow, vertical topsides and vertical transom. Marcon acted as broker consultants to the buyers.

The U.S. flag twin screw tug "Pacific Warrior" (ex- Powhatan, Robbyn J., Zapata 88, Hull 467) was sold. The tug was originally built in 1975 by Halter Marine in Louisiana. She was subsequently repowered in 2004 along with the installation of quad rudders, kort nozzles, new reduction gear foundations, shafts and propellers. She measures 105.0' loa x 96.8' lbp x 30' beam x 14' depth with a 11.7' loaded draft and has an ABS unrestricted ocean loadline. Tank capacities include 50,000g diesel oil, 600g lube oil, and 5,000g potable water. She's fitted with an Intercon single drum main towing winch with a line pull of 40 tons and drum capacity for 2,600' x 1.75" wire. Main engines are two Cummins KTA50M2 Tier 1 diesels with a total 3,000BHP at 1,800RPM driving two 91" x 89" 4-blade skewed fixed pitch propellers in kort nozzles through Reintjes WAT 772 7.445:1 gears. Bollard pull is rated at 45 short tons. Marcon acted as the sole broker in the transaction. The tug will be repositioned to Kodiak, Alaska to work for new owners Paradigm Marine.

A 100m x 25m x 7.2m depth x 1.0m light / 5.7m loaded draft, ABS ocean deck barge was sold on a private & confidential basis. The 10,840mtdw foreign flag barge was one of three sister barges which Marcon International arranged both the purchase and the 7,000nm plus delivery voyage to present sellers in 1999. The 1,799T light displacement, double raked barge was built in 1996 by CSC Jingling Shipyard; Changjian, China and has a 9mt/m2 uniform deck load and fitted with 3.58m (12.0') bin walls which provide a hold capacity of abt. 7,024m3. The three barges had previously been employed in hauling nickel ore in Indonesia at the time of the original sale. This is the 154th ocean deck barge brokered by Marcon, bringing the total capacity to 948,546dwt.

The sale of the 254' x 44' x 16' U.S. flag, platform supply vessel "Elsa Leigh", broke the 1,500 mark for the number of vessel & barges sold or chartered since Marcon opened in 1981. This was the second time during its life that Marcon has sold this vessel. "Elsa Leigh" was originally built in 1983 by Moss Point Marine, Escatawpa, MS as the "Nicor Clipper" for Nicor Marine, Inc. of New Orleans, LA to expand their 37 vessel OSV fleet. At that time, according to then Moss Point Marine president John Dane III, its astounding 254' in length was believed to be the largest offshore workboat vessel ever built in the United States. In addition to her below deck supply vessel mud storage capabilities, the vessel had unique above deck characteristics too - primarily in the form of a special stern ramp constructed by the Moss Point Marine work crews allowing cargo containers to roll on and off her 170' x 35' clear deck for carrying freight. The tug/supply/container deck vessel actually began life as a more conventionally sized 214-foot vessel. After construction began though, Nicor requested that modifications be made to extend the deck area an extra 40 feet. In 1989, Nicor Marine was bought out by Seacor, the vessel renamed "Seacor Clipper" and put for a time on a Military Sealift Command contract out of Florida. In January 2002, "Seacor Clipper" was laid up in Louisiana and sold by Marcon eight months later to Aries Marine Corp. of Louisiana. She was renamed "Elsa Leigh" after one of the Owner's daughters who was 4 years old at the time. By 2002, this was the fourth vessel Marcon had sold to Aries Marine and the fifth vessel sold from Seacor. "Elsa Leigh" went through an extensive renovation at Bollinger's Morgan City shipyard. Much work involved mechanical systems in the hull and replacement of about 30% of the boat's steel, coating tanks and bringing the vessel up to ABS DPS 1, FiFi1 and GMDSS Area 3 certification. Her two main EMD 16-645E engines were removed and rebuilt by NREC in Houma, LA, who boosted their power and the boat's old reverse/reduction gears were replaced with re-conditioned Falk gears. Two new 11,000gpm fire monitors were added and the stern was adapted to accommodate a 600HP Schottel skeg thruster with a DP-1 positioning system controlling the bow & stern thrusters. Two Cummins diesels were added to power the new mud pumps and drive Quincy air compressors handling the dry bulk. Four new 80 PSI dry bulk tanks were also installed, giving the vessel 6,000 cubic foot capacity, and six ballast tanks converted to hold liquid mud. Unfortunately, once again the offshore market took another fall and "Elsa Leigh" was laid up in 2015. New owners are planning to take the vessel out of the offshore petroleum market and trade her as a container feeder vessel in the Caribbean.

Full 2020 Sales report is available here: 2020 Sales Report.pdf