Great Lakes Towing launches new Caribbean breakbulk service

service will use fully enclosed warehouse barge Crimson Clover [Photo: GLE}

The Great Lakes Towing Company (GLT) has purchased the 5,800 tonnes cargo deadweight capacity, fully enclosed warehouse barge Crimson Clover from Crimson Shipping and has created a new operating company named Great Lakes East, LLC (GLE) that is launching a Jones Act compliant breakbulk service from Fernandina Beach, Fla., to San Juan Puerto Rico.

Great Lakes East, (GLE) will operate a domestic and international marine transportation service that will effectively reactivate Crimson Shipping’s former business, which based out of Mobile, Ala. GLE will, however, load out of the Port of Fernandina.

GLE is a U.S. flag, Jones Act compliant, ocean freight carrier that specializes in breakbulk commodities such as paper, lumber, steel, and other breakbulk products with RORO cargo capabilities facilitated by the barge’s self-loading/unloading side ramp configuration.

The Caribbean breakbulk service has a regular service to San Juan and, on inducement, will call neighboring islands and other ports in the Central Caribbean basin.

“Shippers in the domestic trade expressed the need for a breakbulk conveyance alternative to move forest and steel products in the Puerto Rico trade and we responded with a proven solution” said Joe Starck, president of The Great Lakes Towing Company. GLE’s maiden voyage is scheduled to depart Fernandina Beach on July 3, 2024. GLE is actively taking orders and receiving cargo at Fernandina.

GLE has partnered with best-in-class terminal operators in the Port of Fernandina and San Juan to receive, load, discharge, and store weather-sensitive cargo in on-dock warehouses. It says that it is “excited to offer a service that can leverage last mile on-dock rail in Fernandina and a strategic, niche loading port that is easily accessible from the main highways in Northeast Florida.”