page_title: Flexible barge
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Flexible barge / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The 10,800 m3 waterbag developed by Nordic Water Supply in 1997 towed between Turkey and Northern Cyprus
context_page_description: A flexible barge is a fabric barge for the transportation of bulk fresh water or other liquid bulk items such as chemicals or oil.
context_section_description: One such barge is called the Dracone Barge invented in 1956. Other similar devices are the Spragg Bag invented in the 1980s, the water bag proposed by Nordic Water Supply in the late 1990s and the more recent REFRESH modular waterbag, developed in the 2010s. Terry Spragg of Manhattan Beach, California, builds flexible fabric barges for the transportation of bulk fresh water and is the reason why his product is referred to as the "Spragg Bag." In the 1970s Spragg was a promoter of icebergs as a large source of fresh water, but soon realized this was impractical. He then put his skills into developing the waterbag technology starting in the 1980s. Spragg has worked on and perfected this over the last twenty years with his associates. The first field test of his waterbag was in December 1990. The waterbag was 75 meters (246 feet) long and it contained approximately 3,000 cubic metres (790,000 US gal) of fresh water. It was towed from the Port Angeles harbor in the state of Washington. Another test was done in 1996 with a 100-mile (160 km) voyage from Port Angeles to Seattle, Washington. This test ended on April 29 when the fabric of one of the two bags under tow developed a tear. Spragg says that his next goal is to run another test voyage demonstration between Northern and Southern California and a demonstration of the waterbag technology in the Middle East as well as around the world. There are various reasons why it has been difficult to gain support for demonstrating the viability of waterbag technology in California and around the world. Spragg claims when two waterbags pass underneath the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time in history the media will let the whole world know about it. A novel, Water, War, and Peace, has been completed that details the solutions waterbag technology offers to the complex political problems surrounding water issues throughout the Middle East, the United States, and the world.
  The Norwegian company Nordic Water Supply developed a 10.800 m³ bag in 1997 under an agreement with the Turkish government to transport freshwater to Northern Cyprus. Within two years at least 7 million m³ of water had to be delivered annually at a cost of €2.7M per year, with volumes growing over time, but the actual transport only amounted to 4 million m³ in four years and the contract was discontinued by Turkish authorities. As a result, NWS went out of business and was de-listed from the Oslo Stock Exchange in 2003. NSW's waterbag technology was acquired by the Monohakobi Institute of Technology in Japan.
  The REFRESH waterbag was developed by a consortium of companies and research institutes from Greece, Spain, Italy, Turkey and the Czech Republic within two European FP7 projects, REFRESH (running from 2010 to 2012) and the follow-up XXL-REFRESH (running from 2013 to 2015). The first project was focused on validation of the concept of modular waterbag; it developed a small scale prototype of 200 m³ capacity, tested in Greece in 2012. The second project was focused on scale-up and partial redesign of the REFRESH system. At the end of the second project the REFRESH waterbag concept reached commercial scale and a 2500 m³ system made of five 500m³ modules was tested offshore Spain in 2015. The length of the waterbag was 60 m long.
  The REFRESH concept is different from concepts of waterbag proposed earlier, based on huge monolithic containers (as the one proposed by Nordic Water Supply) or "trains" of smaller containers each one being sealed in itself (as the Spragg bag). The REFRESH waterbag is made of a series of modules, each one being a cylinder open at both bases, joined by watertight zippers. This makes it possible to perform all "dry" operations on ground at the level of single modules, overcoming the handling problems of monolithic containers and improves the behaviour in navigation with respect to the "trains" of connected bags.
caption: Nordic Water Supply waterbag
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