selon le principe des trains de barges sur les fleuves.

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Par un bateau pousseur : Ce bateau a pour fonction de pousser et manœuvrer le train de barges. Celui-ci, amarré à l'arrière du convoi par des câbles en acier, ..."

"The barge trains that operate along the Mississippi system may be viewed as real life scale models that have been proven and refined over a period of many years of successful operation in a real world maritime laboratory. Over a period of many years, the Mississippi barge trains have periodically encountered waves on the river, sometimes caused by other watercraft and sometimes caused by severe winds that blow along the river. These occurrences from a real life laboratory involving craft the fraction of the size of oceanic ships, provides a technological precedent that may be scaled up to involve ocean going ships.

"Trans-Arctic Ship Trains:

In the not too distant past, a merchant ship was allowed to follow a Russian icebreaker ship on a voyage between the Norwegian Sea and the Bering Strait. The trans-Arctic sailing conditions require increased engine power to push a ship through snow packed waters. By comparison, a coupled ship train would combine the engine power of several ships that could push the higher hydraulic drag imposed on the bow of the single lead ship sailing through Arctic waters. The train would operate like a straight ship with computer-assisted control of power and navigation.

When the train needs to change direction, computer control would steer rudders to different angles or operate bow and stern thrusters at different rates at different points along the train. Computer control would also regulate power and thrust at various propellers located under the train. For trans-Arctic sailing, there may be scope for the shipbuilding industry to develop a buoyant icebreaking attachment that would be coupled to the bow of the lead ship. The attachment may include electrically driven machinery that could help break up the ice ahead of the ship train, Regular discharges of compressed air under the ice cover, from subterranean caverns would further assist in breaking a path through the ice.

The shipbuilding industry will also need to explore prospects of developing a buoyant coupling technology that could attach between the stern of a lead ship and the bow of a trailing ship. That coupling technology would need to be designed to keep a large cross section of the bow of the trailing ship in the hydraulic shadow of the leading ship, as a means to reduce fuel consumption. Such technology may be applied to several ships that originated from the same shipyard and that are owned by the same shipping company."
http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/op-ed-prospects-fo...