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Sorry, I said a few things that weren't true in my first reply. The Thomas E. Cuffe was not the first LASH built, just the first for Pacific Far-East Line. Also it appears that several other LASH's are still in existence as part of the MARAD reserve fleet.

Yes, they were originally LASH ships, the final two built I believe. Horizon Spirit was originally the Benjamin Harrison and the Reliance was originally the Edward Rutledge, both built for Waterman Steamship. Interestingly, the only other remaining LASH ship is the very first one built, Matson's Lihue (originally the Thomas E. Cuffe of Pacific Far East Line). I sailed on the Lihue for three months last year and it's a great ship. Not sure how much longer they will be around since they are all steamers, although I heard that Pasha was considering repowering the Reliance and Spirit.

Yes. The [i]Horizon Spirit[/i] was built as the [i]Benjamin Harrison[/i] in 1980 by Avondale and the [i]Horizon Reliance[/i] as the [i]Edward Rutledge[/i] at the same yard and time, both for Waterman. Sea-Land purchased them in 1990-1991 and converted them to container ships, and they became, later, the [i]Sea-Land Spirit[/i] and [i]Sea-Land Reliance[/i] and then [i]CSX Spirit[/i] and [i]CSX Reliance[/i]. They were built to the MarAd LASH design C9-S-81f.

They were originally built as LASH ships, but have been converted to container ships for the military. It was planned to repower both ships a few years back, but I don't know if this was done.

Forgive me for straying away from the Great Lakes for a moment.

Were the Horizon Reliance and Horizon Spirit built as barge carrying ships? (LASH or some variant?) They have that unique stern, but I haven't found much of a history yet online.

Thanks in advance for any info.

The link below is to a story today on the gCaptain site about the Horizon Spirit ending its relief efforts in Puerto Rico and returning to the Pacific. It includes a great stern view of the ship.

[u][url]http://gcaptain.com/pasha-hawaiis-horizon-spirit-completes-hurricane-relief-deployment-to-puerto-rico/[/url][/u]