A merchant ship, merchant vessel, trading vessel, or merchantman is a watercraft that transports cargo or carries passengers for hire. This is in contrast to pleasure craft, which are used for personal recreation, and naval ships, which are used for military purposes.
William Henry Webb was a 19th-century New York City shipbuilder and philanthropist, who has been called America's first true naval architect.
A sea captain, ship's captain, captain, master, or shipmaster, is a high-grade licensed mariner who holds ultimate command and responsibility of a merchant vessel. The captain is responsible for the safe and efficient operation of the ship, including its seaworthiness, safety and security, cargo operations, navigation, crew management, and legal compliance, and for the persons and cargo on board.
The Black Ball Line was a passenger line founded by a group of New York Quaker merchants headed by Jeremiah Thompson, and included Isaac Wright & Son (William), Francis Thompson and Benjamin Marshall. All were Quakers except Marshall.
Emma C. Berry is a fishing sloop located at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut, United States, and one of the oldest surviving commercial vessels in America. She is the last known surviving American well smack. This type of boat is also termed a sloop smack or Noank smack. The Noank design was imitated in other regions of the United States.
For the passenger steamer that sank in 1901, see SS Islander
HMS Anaconda was an 18-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy during the War of 1812. She was cruising as an American privateer until sailors from HMS Sceptre captured her in 1813. She served briefly in the Royal Navy during the later stages of the War of 1812, especially at the Battle of New Orleans, before being sold in Jamaica in 1815.
Rainbow, launched in New York in 1845 to sail in the China trade for the firm Howland & Aspinwall, was a clipper, a type of sailing vessel designed to sacrifice cargo capacity for speed.
El Primero is a steam yacht that was built in 1893. This vessel was once considered one of the most luxurious yachts on the West Coast of the United States, and was one of the few steam yachts to be operated on Puget Sound. The yacht has since been converted to diesel, but it remained operational as of 2010.
Ellen Southard was an American full-rigged merchant ship from Bath, Maine that was built in 1863 by prominent shipbuilder T.J. Southard. She plied international trade routes for twelve years, calling at ports as far away as Sydney.
Sue H. Elmore was a steamboat built for service on the coast of Oregon and southwest Washington. From 1900 to 1917, the vessel's principal route ran from Portland, Oregon down the Columbia River to Astoria, and then west across the Columbia Bar, then south along the Oregon coast to Tillamook Bay. Once at Tillamook Bay, Sue H. Elmore was one of the few vessels that could reach Tillamook City at the extreme southern edge of the mostly very shallow bay. After this Sue H. Elmore was sold, being operated briefly in Puget Sound under the name Bergen, and then for many years, out of San Diego, California as a tugboat under the name Cuyamaca. During World War II Cuyamaca was acquired by the U.S. Army which operated the vessel as ST-361. Afterwards the army sold ST-361 and the vessel returned to civilian ownership, again under the name Cuyamaca. In 1948 Cuyamaca sank in a harbor in Venezuela, but was raised and by the early 1950s, was owned by one A. W. Smith, of Pensacola, Florida. This vessel's former landing place in Tillamook, Oregon is now a municipal park named after the ship.
The SV Argo was an American wooden sailing vessel (SV) designed for the trans-Atlantic Packet trade. William Whitlock, Jr acquired the ship for his Havre-Whitlock Line, which regularly scheduled round trips three times a year from New York City to Le Havre, France.
The Havre Union transatlantic packet line was organized in the 1830s from the merger of the Havre Old Line and the Havre Whitlock Line. While the two lines remained independent business entities, they coordinated their sailing schedule and acted as a single line. In the shipping industry, the term packet ship was used to describe a vessel that featured regularly scheduled service on a specific point-to-point line. Usually, the individual ship operated exclusively for the line.
SS Bulgaria was a passenger-cargo steamship built in 1898 for the Hamburg American Line ("Hapag"). During World War I, she operated as a United States Army animal and cargo ship under the names USAT Hercules and USAT Philippines, and after the war was converted into the troop transport USS Philippines (ID-1677).
SS Charles H. Marshall was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after Charles H. Marshall, an American businessman, art collector and philanthropist who was prominent in society during the Gilded Age.
Hurricane was a large extreme clipper of 1608 tons burthen built in Hoboken, New Jersey, United States in 1851. Reputedly the most extreme clipper ever built, Hurricane proved a very fast vessel, reportedly capable of speeds of up to 18 knots (33 km/h) in ideal conditions, and establishing a number of record passages in the early years of her career.
The Patrick Henry (packet) was a three-masted, square-rigged, merchant-class, sailing packet ship that transported mail, newspapers, merchandise and thousands of people from 1839 to 1864, during the Golden Age of Sail, primarily between Liverpool and New York City, as well as produce, grains and clothing to aid in humanitarian efforts during an Gorta Mór.
The wooden sailing ship Oneida was a merchant vessel built for the New York to Le Havre, France packet trade. It was owned by John J. Boyd and Edward Hincken, and it operated on the Havre Second Line.
The Havre Second Line was a business organization that provided packet service between the Ports of New York and Le Havre, France. William A. Fairburn identified four characteristics of a packet service. (1) a regular line between ports; (2) ships operating exclusively in the service; (3) common ownership of the operating ships and associated facilities by individuals, a partnership, or a corporation; and (4) regular sailing on a specified day of a certain month.
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