Historical merchant trading ship: a Dutch fluyt cargo vessel from the late 17th-century

A merchant vessel or trading vessel is a ship that transports cargo or passengers. The closely related term commercial vessel is defined by the United States Coast Guard as any vessel (i.e. boat or ship) engaged in commercial trade or that carries passengers for hire. This would exclude pleasure craft that do not carry passengers for hire or warships.

They come in a myriad of sizes and shapes from twenty-foot inflatable dive boats in Hawaii, to 5,000 passenger casino vessels on the Mississippi River, totugboats plying New York Harbor, to 1,000 foot oil tankers and container ships at major ports, to a passenger carrying submarine in the U.S. Virgin Islands.^[1]

Most countries of the world operate fleets of merchant ships. However, due to the high costs of operations, today these fleets are in many cases sailing under the flags of nations that specialize in providing manpower and services at favourable terms. Such flags are known as “flags of convenience“. Currently,Liberia and Panama are particularly favoured. Ownership of the vessels can be by any country, however.

The Greek-owned fleet is the largest in the world. Today, the Greek fleet accounts for some 16 per cent of the world’s tonnage; this makes it currently the largest single international merchant fleet in the world, albeit not the largest in history.^[2]

In English, “Merchant Navy” without further clarification is used to refer to the British Merchant Navy; the United States merchant fleet is known as the United States Merchant Marine.

During wars, merchant ships may be used as auxiliaries to the navies of their respective countries, and are called upon to deliver military personnel and material.

Name prefixes

Merchant ships names are prefixed by which kind of vessel they are:

• MS = Motorship
• MV = Motor Vessel
• SS = Steam Ship
• MT = Motor Tanker or Motor Tug Boat
• MSV = Motor Stand-by Vessel
• MY = Motor Yacht
• RMS = Royal Mail Ship
• RRS = Royal Research Ship
• SV = Sailing Vessel (although these can be sub coded as type of sailing vessel)
• LPG = Gas carrier transporting liquefied petroleum gas
• LNG = Gas carrier transporting liquefied natural gas
• CS = Cable Ship or Cable layer
• RV = Research Vessel
• MFV = Motor Fishing Vessel

Merchant ship categories

Merchant ships may be divided into several categories, according to their purpose and/or size.

Dry cargo ships

Sabrina I carries bulk cargo inside her holds

A cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship or vessel that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world’s seas and oceans each year; they handle the bulk of international trade. Cargo ships are usually specially designed for the task, often being equipped withcranes and other mechanisms to load and unload, and come in all sizes.

Dry cargo ships today are mainly bulk carriers and container ships. Bulk carriers or bulkers are used for the transportation of homogeneous cargo such as coal,rubber, copra, tin, and wheat. Container ships are used for the carriage of miscellaneous goods.

Bulk carriers

A bulk carrier is an ocean-going vessel used to transport bulk cargo items such as iron ore, bauxite, coal, cement, grain and similar cargo. Bulk carriers can be recognized by large box-like hatches on deck, designed to slide outboard or fold fore-and-aft to enable access for loading or discharging cargo. The dimensions of bulk carriers are often determined by the ports and sea routes that they need to serve, and by the maximum width of the Panama Canal. Most lakes are too small to accommodate bulk carriers, but a large fleet of lake freighters has been plying the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway of North America for over a century.

Container ships

The Colombo Express, one of the largest container ships in the world, owned and operated byHapag-Lloyd of Germany

Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size containers, in a technique called containerization. They form a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport.

Tankers

Commercial crude oil supertankerAbQaiq.

A tanker is a ship designed to transport liquids in bulk.

Oil tankers for the transport of fluids, such as crude oil, petroleum products, liquefied petroleum gas, liquefied natural gas and chemicals, also vegetable oils,wine and other food – the tanker sector comprises one third of the world tonnage.

Tankers can range in size from several hundred tons, designed to serve small harbours and coastal settlements, to several hundred thousand tons, with these being designed for long-range haulage. A wide range of products are carried by tankers, including:

• hydrocarbon products such as oil, LPG, and LNG
• Chemicals, such as ammonia, chlorine, and styrene monomer
• fresh water
• wine

Different products require different handling and transport, thus special types of tankers have been built, such as “chemical tankers” and “oil tankers“. Gas Carriers such as “”LNG carriers” as they are typically known, are a relatively rare tanker designed to carry liquefied natural gas.

Among oil tankers, supertankers were designed for carrying oil around the Horn of Africa from the Middle East; the FSO Knock Nevis being the largest vessel in the world, a ULCC supertankerformerly known as Jahre Viking (Seawise Giant). It has a deadweight of 565 thousand metric tons and length of about 500 meters. The use of such large ships is in fact very unprofitable, due to the inability to operate them at full cargo capacity; hence, the production of supertankers has currently ceased. Today’s largest oil tankers in comparison by gross tonnage are TI Europe, TI Asia, TI Oceania, which are the largest sailing vessels today. But even with their deadweight of 441,585 metric tons, sailing as VLCC most of the time, they do not use more than 70% of their total capacity.

Apart from pipeline transport, supertankers are the only method for transporting large quantities of oil, although such tankers have caused large environmental disasters when sinking close to coastal regions, causing oil spills. See Braer, Erika, Exxon Valdez, Prestige and Torrey Canyon for examples of tankers that have been involved in oil spills.

Specialized ships

Specialized ships, e.g. for heavy lift goods or refrigerated cargo (reefer ships), roll-on/roll-off cargo (RoRo) ships for vehicles and wheeled machinery. These ships are not very well developed, except those used as car carriers. Only this sector of the maritime industry is well developed. The current largest roll-on/roll-off cargo (RoRo) ships are Sunbelt Spirit, Liberty (ex-Faust), Phoenix Leader and Aquamarine Ace, each capable of carrying between six and nine thousand units. Another type of specialised ship is the cable ship or cable layer. These are deep-sea vessels designed and used to lay underwater cables for telecommunications, electric power transmission, or other purposes. In addition to cable layer ships, there are cable repairing ships which are tasked with finding and repairing under sea cables that break or for whatever reason became inoperable.

Coasters

Coasters, smaller ships for any category of cargo which are normally not on ocean-crossing routes, but in coastwise trades. Coasters are shallow-hulled ships used for trade between locations on the same island or continent. Their shallow hulls mean that they can get through reefs where seagoing ships usually cannot (seagoing ships have a very deep hull for supplies and trade etc.).

Passenger ships

A passenger ship is a ship whose primary function is to carry passengers. The category does not include cargo vessels which have accommodations for limited numbers of passengers, such as the formerly ubiquitous twelve-passenger freighters in which the transport of passengers is secondary to the carriage of freight. The type does however include many classes of ships which are designed to transport substantial numbers of passengers as well as freight. Indeed, until recently virtually all ocean liners were able to transport mail, package freight and express, and other cargo in addition to passenger luggage, and were equipped with cargo holds and derricks, kingposts, or other cargo-handling gear for that purpose. Modern cruiseferries have car decks for lorries as well as the passenger’s cars. Only in more recent ocean liners and in virtually all cruise ships has this cargo capacity been removed.

Cruise ships

A cruise ship is a passenger ship used for pleasure voyages, where the voyage itself and the ship’s amenities are considered an essential part of the experience. Cruising has become a major part of the tourism industry, with millions of passengers each year. The industry’s rapid growth has seen nine or more newly built ships catering to a North American clientele added every year since 1978, as well as others serving European clientele. Smaller markets such as the Asia–Pacific region are generally served by older tonnage displaced by new ships introduced into the high growth areas.

Cruise ships operate on a mostly set roundabout course or round trips (i.e., they tend to return to their originating port) whereas ocean liners are specifically for the mass transportation of people between ports (i.e. Southampton – New York).

Ferries

The ferryboat at Kei Mouth with the former Transkei opposite on the eastern bank, ca.2006.

A ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat or ship, but also other forms, carrying (or ferrying) passengers and sometimes their vehicles. Ferries are also used to transport freight (in lorries and sometimes unpowered freight containers) and even railroad cars (in the case of a train ferry). Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services. A foot-passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, is sometimes called a waterbus or water taxi.

Ferries form public transport systems of many waterside cities, allowing direct transit between points at a capital cost much lower than bridges or tunnels.

See also

References

External links

• The American Waterways Operators (AWO)
• Photos show the specificity of working on merchant ships
• Photos of merchant ships