Boatnerd Discussion Forum

Thanks for the backstory! I had a hunch she might have an interesting past.

i believe when she was the gt ironmaster some where on the east coast she rolled over and lost her cargo obivously she must of righted her self when she was owned by seaspan she hauled salt from mexico to vancouverw7

GT 107, Inc. of Wilmington, Delaware sold their 360’ x 75’ x 25’ depth / 19’ max draft, U.S. flag, ocean deck barge “GT Ironmaster” (ex-G.T. Steelmaster, ex-Ceres, ex-American Gulf VIII, ex-Ceres, ex-Seaspan 241) to Purvis Marine of Sault Ste. Marie; Ontario, Canada. The ABS A1 classed, 11,374dwt barge was originally built in 1962 by Yarrows Shipbuilders Ltd. of Esquimalt, British Columbia as Canadian flagged ocean deck barge “Seaspan 241”. The barge was wrecked in the late 70s on Oregon’s Columbia River bar and salvaged. After repairs were made equal to three times the appraised salvage value, the barge attained full U.S. coastwise trading privileges under the “Wrecked Vessels” Statute (46 U.S.C. app. 14), even though she was built in Canada. The barge was totally retrofitted in Vancouver, Washington as the U.S. flag, 12,000 ton deadweight, self- unloading bulk barge “Ceres” in 1980-1981 at a reported cost of abt. US$ 5.5 million. With her new 310’ x 70’ x 31’ high enclosed house and conveyor discharge system, the barge traded until the mid-late 1990s in grain from the West Coast to Carnation’s Milling Division in Honolulu, urea from Kenai, Alaska to Portland, Oregon for Unocal and PL-480 grain to the Latin American west coast. After that, the “Ceres” was sold out of the bulk grain trade and once again converted - this time back to an ocean deck barge with an open 303’ x 61’ x 14’ cargo box. As the U.S. flag “GT Ironmaster”, the barge traded in commodities such as salt, sand, pumice and steel. Barge is appropriately being reflagged once
again into Canadian registry. This is Marcon’s first transaction with this Seller but is the third sale to Purvis Marine in the last 18 months. Marcon acted as sole broker in the transaction.

A quick search on Boatnerd shows that the Purvis barge "Ironmaster" was formerly the "GT Ironmaster." Can anyone provide more information about it? Does it replace the capacity Purvis lost when they scrapped the Chief?