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Amerchant ship,merchant vessel,trading vessel, ormerchantman is awatercraft that transportscargo or carriespassengers for hire. This is in contrast topleasure craft, which are used for personal recreation, andnaval ships, which are used for military purposes.
They come in myriad sizes and shapes, from six-metre (20 ft) inflatabledive boats in Hawaii, to 5,000-passenger and morecasino vessels on the Mississippi River, totugboats plyingNew York Harbor, to 300-metre (1,000 ft) oil tankers andcontainer ships at major ports, to passenger-carryingsubmarines in theCaribbean.[1]
Many merchant ships operate under a "flag of convenience" from a country other than the home of the vessel's owners, such asLiberia andPanama, which have more favorable maritime laws than other countries.
TheGreek merchant marine is the largest in the world. Today, the Greek fleet accounts for some 16 per cent of the world'stonnage; this makes it currently the largest single international merchant fleet in the world, albeit not the largest in history.[2]
During wars, merchant ships may be used as auxiliaries to thenavies of their respective countries, and are called upon to delivermilitary personnel andmateriel.
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The term "commercial vessel" is defined by theUnited States Coast Guard as any vessel (i.e. boat or ship) engaged in commercialtrade or that carries passengers for hire.
In English, the term "Merchant Navy" without further clarification is used to refer to theBritish Merchant Navy; the United States merchant fleet is known as theUnited States Merchant Marine.
Merchant ships' names have a prefix to indicate which kind of vessel they are:[3]
TheUNCTAD review of maritime transport categorizes ships as: oil tankers, bulk (and combination) carriers, general cargo ships, container ships, and "other ships", which includes "liquefied petroleum gas carriers, liquefied natural gas carriers, parcel (chemical) tankers, specialized tankers, reefers, offshore supply, tugs, dredgers, cruise, ferries, other non-cargo". General cargo ships include "multi-purpose and project vessels andRoll-on/roll-off cargo".[5]
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A cargo ship or freighter is any sort ofship or vessel that carriescargo, 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 ofinternational 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.
A bulk carrier is aship used to transportbulk cargo items such asiron 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 oflake freighters has been plying theGreat Lakes andSt. Lawrence Seaway ofNorth America for over a century.
A container ship is a cargo ship that carries its cargo in standardized containers, in a technique calledcontainerization. These ships are a common means of commercialintermodal freight transport.
A tanker is aship designed to transportliquids in bulk. Tankers can range in size from several hundredtons, 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:
Different products require different handling and transport, thus special types of tankers have been built, such aschemical tankers,oil tankers, andgas carriers.
Among oil tankers,supertankers were designed for carrying oil around theHorn of Africa from theMiddle East; the FSOKnock Nevis being the largest vessel in the world, a ULCCsupertanker formerly known asJahre Viking (Seawise Giant). It has a deadweight of 565,000 metric tons and length of about 458 meters (1,500 ft). 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 ofsupertankers has currently ceased. Today's largest oil tankers in comparison by gross tonnage areTI 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 frompipeline transport, tankers are the only method for transporting large quantities of oil, although such tankers have caused large environmental disasters when sinking close to coastal regions, causingoil spills. SeeBraer,Erika,Exxon Valdez,Prestige andTorrey Canyon for examples of tankers that have been involved in oil spills.
Coastal trading vessels are smaller ships that carry any category of cargo along coastal, rather than trans-oceanic, routes. Coasters are shallow-hulledships used for trade between locations on the same island or continent. Their shallow hulls allow them to sail overreefs and other submerged navigation hazards, whereas ships designed for blue-water trade usually have much deeper hulls for betterseakeeping.
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A passenger ship is a ship whose primary function is to carry passengers. The category does not includecargo 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 allocean liners were able to transport mail, package freight and express, and other cargo in addition to passenger luggage, and were equipped withcargo holds and derricks, kingposts, or other cargo-handling gear for that purpose. Moderncruiseferries havecar decks for lorries as well as the passengers' cars. Only in more recentocean liners and in virtually allcruise ships has this cargo capacity been removed. Aferry is aboat orship carrying passengers and sometimes their vehicles. Ferries are also used to transport freight (inlorries and sometimes unpowered freightcontainers) and evenrailroad cars (in the case of atrain ferry).
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