These are not barges. They are ships. Barges have no propulsion, and thus must be towed or pushed by tug boats. Get it? "Tug" boats?

The vessels shown in the pictures are actually cargo ships not barges. Barges are flat bottomed vessels that are not self powered; they require an assist vessel such as a tug boat to tow or push them along their way.

You don't get to call them barges just because you throw an asterisk in there. Words mean things, Rich! Your misuse is a distraction from the rest of the story (if the goofy anthropomorphization of container ships is a story, which on Slog I suppose it is.)

I have a chubby?

My experience reading this piece....

That's not a barge...
That's not a barge...
That's not a barge...
That's not a barge...
That's not a barge...
That's not a barge...
That's not a barge...

Oh. Here is a note at the end that says the author is choosing to use a noun to mean some other thing which is absolutely a completely different thing because he likes the sound of the word.

Next time why don't you write something using a string of completely random but aesthetically pleasing words, and then at the bottom you could have a note that defines what word you really meant for each word. That would be neat.

lmao at the soulless pedants @1-5.

“Error! Error! Misidentified watercraft! Emergency!”

Learn to art, nooooooobs!

Would you look at the bridge wings on that thing? [bites fist]

** & some if these “container ships” are actually “tankers” or “tanker ships”; these are not interchangeable terms.

While we're at it, the Seattle Water Taxi is NOT a "taxi" - you cannot hail it and ask it to take you wherever you want to go. It should properly be called something else, with the West Seattle / Coleman Dock Water Shuttle.

Enough of this argy-bargy.

Barges are moochers; powerless; at the wishes and whims of winds and tides, and whoever puts the first rope on ‘er – “take me. Take me somewhere – ANY where, but here!” You could have onehellova party on that barge….

I sorta hate to barge in on your current unreality Rich, but omg, our president’s finally gotten to you:

“’When I use a word,’ Humpty [Trumpfty] Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ’which is to be master -- that's all.’” –Lewis Carroll, ages ago

Look, I'm as much a linguistic descriptivist as anyone. More than most, I'd wager. And the boaty set is particularly egregious about linguistic pedantry - sorry cap'n, your boat is incapable of having a gender identity. It's an it, not a she.

It takes a lot to rouse me past the point of my natural sympathies towards the poetic and natural antipathy towards yachtspeople to chime in on this. But this, this absurd expansion of the word "barge" to encompass, apparently, any cargo vessel of any shape? This is too much.

No. These are not barges. They do not have flat bottoms, they are not made to traverse inland waterways. These are ships. I reject your debased coinage, and urge you not to repeat it.

Those are not all APL, and @ 8, no bulkers, not tankers, in Seattle to load grain.

Awesome app to find out what is the name of all these vessels, where they're coming from, where they're going to...

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.marinetraffic.android

Author: "LOL, I'm sexually attracted to barges! Look at those dang sexy barges!"

Everyone Else: "That's deeply disturbing. That's actually a cargo ship, not a barge."

Author: "Don't care - I'm calling it a sexy barge!"

Everyone Else: "What kind of depraved world do we live in that accepts casual mis-identification of cargo ships??!!""

there was ever a better illustration of the online community at the moment, I don't know where it is.

@#15: "Cargo ship" is somewhat of a misnomer, as all ships carry cargo, the correct terms would be; container ship, bulker, tanker, ect (the ships pictured are Container ships and bulkers) or more generically merchant ship.

Also Rich states that "Each night this American President Line barge dresses up like the aquarium and offers up his bouquet of containers filled with coal and plastics," this is also incorrect, it would be a different ship each night, and coal is not carried in containers but is transported in bulk.

The ship pictured is outbound, on it's 4 hour journey to depart Puget Sound on it's way west to Asia and is most likely loaded with seafood and agricultural products.

Interestingly Rich's love affair with ships doesn't seem to extend to companies other than APL (which has not berthed a U.S. Flag bottom in Puget Sound in years) There is Matson, and FTR Slog Poster FRANF recently got a tour of a Matson Lines container Ship...

P.S. If only there was some person commenting here, who by virtue of his screen name, would be able to help explain these things to Rich...

Also (and is anyone still reading this?) worth noting for the Record that Rich posted his love for the Seattle Waterfront on Bloody Thursday (which once again Slog failed to mention)

https://www.ilwu.org/remembering-bloody-thursday/

I, for one, think it's great that the editors of The Stranger allow Rich to post his Creative Writing class assignments here on their blog.