New Orleans Lightering and Wrecking Co. - Stock Certificate

Stock printed by Crescent Lith. New Orleans, Louisiana. Light toning with ink stain and erosion. Interesting! Important stock!

Lightering (also called lighterage) is the process of transferring cargo between vessels of different sizes, usually between a barge (lighter) and a bulker or oil tanker. Lightering is undertaken to reduce a vessel's draft so it can enter port facilities that cannot accept large fully-loaded ocean-going vessels. Lightering can also refer to the use of a lighter barge for any form of short-distance transport, such as to bring railroad cars across a river. In addition, lightering can refer to the process of removing oil or other hazardous chemicals from a compromised vessel to another vessel to prevent an oil spill.

Lightering was practiced for all types of cargo for centuries. Prior to the 19th century introduction of steamships too large to enter some of the ports they intended to serve, in which case lightering became necessary to reduce the vessels' draft sufficiently to enter the port, cargoes ranging from water to ships' stores (food, livestock, misc. supplies), to gunpowder and shot, were carried from dockside to sailing ships moored in harbors and roadways. Dredging, advances in dock construction, and containerization have reduced the frequency of the practice in dry bulk shipping after the middle of the 20th century. However, the practice remains in common usage in the oil tanking industry ("wet" cargo trade).

Lightering for tankers typically occurs in the EEZ, generally between 20 nautical miles (40 km) and 60 nautical miles (110 km) from the shore, and can be performed while the ships are at anchor, drifting, or underway. The product is typically transferred using specialized hoses which offload cargo from the larger vessel to the smaller. Fenders are used to separate the two ships moored to each other and prevent damage while the cargo is being transferred.

In many developing nations, such as China and especially India, dry bulk vessels still often lighter so they can meet draft restrictions at ports with no natural deep water access or without channels dredged to sufficient depth to allow safe transit.

In dry bulk, lightering can be undertaken one of two ways. If the vessel to be lightered is geared, then it can discharge cargo to smaller, ungeared vessels (typically barges). If the vessel to be lightered is gearless, then floating cranes are often used to transfer cargo to another vessel or barge. A roll-on/roll-off discharge facility, a floating platform, can also be used to connect the vessels.

Also, though not very common, vessels will sometimes lighter before (or even between) berthings, shifting to shallower berths to discharge more quickly and free up space for larger vessels.

Wrecking is the practice of taking valuables from a shipwreck which has foundered or run aground close to shore. Often an unregulated activity of opportunity in coastal communities, wrecking has been subjected to increasing regulation and evolved into what is now known as marine salvage.

Wrecking is no longer economically significant. However, as recently as the 19th century in some parts of the world, it was the mainstay of otherwise economically marginal coastal communities.

A traditional legendary trope is that of wreckers deliberately decoying ships on to coasts using tricks, especially false lights, so that they run ashore for easy plundering. While this has been depicted in many stories and legends, there is no clear evidence that this has ever happened.

For several centuries, wrecking was an important economic activity in the Florida Keys. During the 19th century, wrecking in the Keys became a highly organized and regulated industry, with dozens of vessels and hundreds of men active in the trade at any given time. The Florida Keys form a long arc of islands extending from the southern end of the east coast of Florida to the Dry Tortugas. A line of shallow coral reefs, the Florida Reef, runs parallel to the Keys from east of Cape Florida to southwest of Key West, with dangerous shoals stretching west from Key West to the Dry Tortugas. This chain of reefs and shoals is approximately 200 miles (320 km) long, separated from the Keys by the narrow and relatively shallow Hawk Channel. The Gulf Stream passes close to the Florida Reef through the Straits of Florida, which is the major route for shipping between the eastern coast of the United States and ports in the Gulf of Mexico and the western Caribbean Sea. The combination of heavy shipping and a powerful current flowing close to dangerous reefs made the Florida Keys the site of a great many wrecks, especially during the 19th century. Ships were wrecking on the Florida Reef at the rate of almost once a week in the middle of the 19th century (the collector of customs in Key West reported a rate of 48 wrecks a year in 1848). For a period of almost 100 years, wrecking captains and wrecking vessels in the Keys had to hold a license issued by the Federal court. In 1858, there were 47 boats and ships licensed as wreckers.

Ships began wrecking along the Florida Reef almost as soon as Europeans reached the New World. From early in the 16th century, Spanish ships returning from the New World to Spain sailed from Havana to catch the Gulf Stream, which meant they passed close to the Florida Reef, with some wrecking. The first wreckers in the Keys were Indians; when Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda's ship was wrecked in 1549, he was taken prisoner by Indians who were experienced in plundering wrecked ships. In 1622, six ships of the Spanish treasure fleet wrecked during a hurricane in the lower Keys. Spanish operations to recover the gold and silver from the lost ships continued intermittently for 21 years, but the Spanish lost track of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, which was finally found and excavated in the 20th century. In 1733, 19 ships of the Spanish treasure fleet wrecked during a hurricane in the middle and upper keys, and salvage operations lasted four years. The Spanish used dragged chains, grapnels, free divers and even an early diving bell to find and recover goods from the wrecked ships.

Starting in the 18th century, ships from The Bahamas began frequenting the Florida Keys. The Bahamians were opportunists, fishing, turtling, logging tropical hardwoods on the Keys, and salvaging wrecks as the opportunity arose. When the Spanish were salvaging the wrecks of the 1733 treasure fleet, the Spanish commander of the operation expressed concern that the Bahamians would try to salvage some of the treasure on their own. By 1775, George Gauld, who produced a chart of the Keys that was still being used 75 years later, advised mariners to stay with their ships if they wrecked, so that the Bahamian wreckers could assist them. Although the Keys were at various times part of Spanish Florida, the British colony of East Florida and the U.S. Florida Territory, the Bahamians took goods salvaged from ships wrecked in the Keys to Nassau for adjudication, rather than to the Florida port of entry, St. Augustine. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812 in 1815, increased shipping through the Straits of Florida resulted in an increase in wrecks on the Keys, and the Crown's share from the auction of salvaged goods became the major support of the economy of Nassau.

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