‘Shifting Loads' in two senses as in 1) moving a lot of stuff and 2) that stuff moving about on the transport. Today's photo was again taken back in 1991 near Suzhou in China.
This logistics operation appears to be a family affair. There's a woman working at the front of the boat while a man sits at the tiller at the rear.
Lying on the roof of the cabin in front of the man is a sleeping baby. Quite how the infant could sleep with the noise of the motor I don't know but maybe the movement of the boat helped. The load of concrete blocks has shifted, maybe this boat hit the wake of another that caused the blocks to tumble? At least this guy has left himself more freeboard than the coal haulier.
I wonder now if these boatmen had to compete for loads, just like independent truckers do? The recent river freighter images I've posted all point to these being owner-operated vessels. I wonder if some of the operators specialized or if they all just picked up whatever loads they could find?
The houses in the background, on top of the river bank, look drab and dreary while a flock of ducks pecks away at the mud by the house on the left. The bank itself appears to have been reinforced with something to protect the track that runs alongside the river from wake erosion.
