TOTE Maritime is an owner/operator of domestic shipping in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. They specialize in moving cargo between

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...

and

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U ...

. TOTE Maritime Puerto Rico was the owner of '' El Faro'', a large

container ship A container ship (also called boxship or spelled containership) is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermoda ...

that sank in 2015 after she steamed directly into a hurricane.Slade, Rachel. ''Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm and the Sinking of the El Faro''. HarperCollins, New York, 2018.

Subsidiaries

The Sea Star Line is a subsidiary of Tote Maritime.

Fleet

;Historic * SS ''Great Land'' 1975 - Ponce-Class

roll-on/roll-off Roll-on/roll-off (RORO or ro-ro) ships are cargo ships designed to carry wheeled cargo, such as cars, motorcycles, trucks, semi-trailer trucks, buses, trailers, and railroad cars, that are driven on and off the ship on their own wheels or using ...

ship, decommissioned after 2010 and sent to be broken up 2013 * 6

Very Large Crude Carriers An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined cr ...

- operated by Interocean Management Corporation (now Tote Services) from 1975 to 1980 * 3 Liberty Class ships - operated by Interocean Management Corporation (now Tote Services) from 1975 to 1980 * SS ''Westward Venture'' 1977 - Ponce-Class Ro/RO ship * SS ''Northern Lights'' 1975, renamed 1991 and acquired in 1993; became SS ''El Faro'' in 2006 and sank in 2015 * SS ''El Morro'' 1974 - sister to ''El Faro'', scrapped in 2012 after a Coast Guard inspection revealed the ship was structurally unsound. * SS ''El Yunque'' 1976 - sister to ''El Faro'', scrapped in 2017 after a Coast Guard inspection revealed the ventilation trunks had rusted away. ;Current List of ships owned by TOTE: * 2 tug and barge set - acquired 1985 * 2 tug and barge set - acquired 1990 * MV ''Midnight Sun'' 2002 - Orca Class ship (to be converted as LNG 2016) * MV ''North Star'' 2003 - Orca Class ship (to be converted as LNG 2016) Tote Maritime is notable for ordering the world's first LNG-powered

s: * launched on 15 April 2015 * on August 31, 2015.

Sinking of ''El Faro''

The was lost with all hands after entering the eye wall of

Hurricane Joaquin Hurricane Joaquin (, ) was a powerful tropical cyclone that devastated several districts of The Bahamas and caused damage in the Turks and Caicos Islands, parts of the Greater Antilles, and Bermuda. It was also the strongest Atlantic hurricane o ...

and losing power between Florida and the Bahamas on October 1, 2015. Coast Guard investigators lambasted TOTE Maritime, stating the company made several violations regarding crew members' rest periods and work hours, had no dedicated safety officer to oversee the ''El Faro'', and used outdated, "open air" lifeboats (similar to the types used on older vessels, such as the RMS ''Titanic'') instead of the modern enclosed survival craft, among other violations. The company never filed an internal incident and investigation record for the sinking.

External links

References

http://shipbuildinghistory.com/shipyards/large/sun.htm{{United States-flag shipping companies Container shipping companies of the United States Container shipping companies American companies established in 1975 Multinational companies based in Jacksonville