November 17 - The 10,000 dwt, Vanuatu-flagged ocean flat deck barge, DRC/Blake 1 (ex- Eide Barge 35, Pacific Horizon, MB-100, SLB-1 and SLB-2) has been sold to private South American buyers, marking the second time that Marcon International, Inc of Coupev

Marcon previously brokered the sale of the barge from Horizon Offshore of Houston, USA to Eide Marine Servicesof Norway in 2004.

The barge is 100 m long, 30 m wide and has a draft of 7.5 m (pictured below). It has a 10 tonnes per sq m uniform deck load and is classed by LloydsLR +100 A1 Pontoon.

DRC/Blake 1 was converted in 1996 by longitudinally joining two existing barges which had been originally built in 1982/3 by Scott Lithgow in Glasgow, UK. The original barges, SLB-1 and SLB-2 were specially built for load-out of heavy deck units for mating to semi-submersibles. Each pontoon segment was ballastable and fitted with a pump room located forward with two 350 cu m/h ballast pumps.

The DRC/Blake 1 will be repositioned to South America by her new owners. Marcon was sole broker involved in this transaction and says that it has brokered 35 sales and charters to date in 2011. Several additional sales are pending and expected to close shortly.