A container ship is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport and now carry most seagoing non-bulk cargo.
Intermodal freight transport involves the transportation of freight in an intermodal container or vehicle, using multiple modes of transportation, without any handling of the freight itself when changing modes. The method reduces cargo handling, and so improves security, reduces damage and loss, and allows freight to be transported faster. Reduced costs over road trucking is the key benefit for inter-continental use. This may be offset by reduced timings for road transport over shorter distances.
Sevmorput is a Russian nuclear-powered cargo ship. The 1988-built vessel is one of only four nuclear-powered merchant ships ever built and, after returning to service in 2016 following an extensive refit, the only such vessel to remain in service as of 2023.
A sidelifter is a specialised vehicle or semi-trailer used to hoist and transport ISO standard intermodal containers over longer distances.
A reefer ship is a refrigerated cargo ship typically used to transport perishable cargo, which require temperature-controlled handling, such as fruits, meat, vegetables, dairy products, and similar items.
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.
A lighter is a type of flat-bottomed barge used to transfer goods and passengers to and from moored ships. Lighters were traditionally unpowered and were moved and steered using long oars called "sweeps" and the motive power of water currents. They were operated by skilled workers called lightermen and were a characteristic sight in London's docks until about the 1960s, when technological changes made this form of lightering largely redundant. Unpowered lighters continue to be moved by powered tugs, however, and lighters may also now themselves be powered. The term is also used in the Lighter Aboard Ship (LASH) system.
Roll-on/roll-off ships are cargo ships designed to carry wheeled cargo, such as cars, motorcycles, trucks, semi-trailer trucks, buses, trailers, and railroad cars, that are driven on and off the ship on their own wheels or using a platform vehicle, such as a self-propelled modular transporter. This is in contrast to lift-on/lift-off (LoLo) vessels, which use a crane to load and unload cargo.
A dry bulk cargo barge is a barge designed to carry freight such as coal, ores, grain, sand or gravel, or similar materials. Barges are usually constructed of steel. They have an outer hull, and one or more internal holds. A rake barge has a bow shaped to cause less resistance when being pushed and is usually placed at the head of the tow. A box barge has no rake to the ends and is usually placed in the center and rear of the tow and can hold more cargo.
A ship's hold or cargo hold is a space for carrying cargo in the ship's compartment.
A gantry crane is a crane built atop a gantry, which is a structure used to straddle an object or workspace. They can range from enormous "full" gantry cranes, capable of lifting some of the heaviest loads in the world, to small shop cranes, used for tasks such as lifting automobile engines out of vehicles. They are also called portal cranes, the "portal" being the empty space straddled by the gantry.
The LARC-LX, originally designated as BARC is a welded steel-hulled amphibious cargo vehicle.
Seatrain Lines, officially the Over-Seas Shipping Company, was a shipping and transportation company conducting operations in the Americas and trans-Pacific regions. Seatrain Lines began intermodal freight transport in December 1928 by transporting entire loaded railroad freight cars between the United States and Cuba. The specially designed ship Seatrain, built in England, was followed in 1932 by two larger ships built in the United States and in 1939 by two additional ships. By the outbreak of World War II the company was operating five ships that became important in the war effort and basis for the design of fifty new ships for military use. A series of business setbacks amid the rise of containerized shipping left the company in perilous financial condition in the 1970s. Seatrain Lines shut down in 1981 after filing for bankruptcy.
A heavy-lift ship is a vessel designed to move very large loads that cannot be handled by normal ships. They are of two types:
In shipping, break-bulk, breakbulk, or break bulk cargo, also called general cargo, is goods that are stowed on board ship in individually counted units. Traditionally, the large numbers of items are recorded on distinct bills of lading that list them by different commodities. This is in contrast to cargo stowed in modern intermodal containers as well as bulk cargo, which goes directly, unpackaged and in large quantities, into a ship's hold(s), measured by volume or weight.
Lykes Bros. Steamship Co., also called Lykes Lines, was a cargo shipping company acting from the beginning of the 20th century to 2005 having its main business in the trade to and from the United States.
BaCo Liner an abbreviation for 'Ba'rge - 'Co'ntainer - Carrier, was a shipping service between Europe and Africa owned by Seerederei Bacoliner GmbH of Duisburg, Germany. It used a fleet of specialized barge carrying LASH vessels which have a very unusual design: they carry both conventional shipping containers, and barges that are loaded through twin doors in the bow, a kind of 'float in-float out' arrangement.
Yulius Fuchik was a Soviet and later Ukrainian barge carrier. Derivatives of the Seabee system, she and her sister ship, Tibor Szamueli, were built in the late 1970s by the Finnish state-owned shipbuilder Valmet in Vuosaari shipyard. As the demand for lighter transport fell in the 1990s, she was sold and eventually broken up in Alang in 2003.
The Type C5 ship is a United States Maritime Administration (MARAD) designation for World War II breakbulk cargo and later a container ship for containerization shipments. The first type C5-class ship was a class of ships constructed and produced in the United States during World War II. The World War II C5-class ship was dry bulk cargo ship built by Bethlehem Steel in Sparrows Point, Maryland. Bethlehem Steel built eight ships in this bulk cargo class and four orders were canceled. The C5-class ship has a 24,250 DWT and was 560 feet (170 m) long. The C5 was mainly used as iron ore carriers. The C5 was needed to replace other ships that sank during World War II. First in her class was SS Venore, USMC #1982, delivered on 20 July 1945. The Type C5-class ship designed to fill the need to move iron ore from Santa Cruz, Chile, to Sparrows Point, Maryland, through the Panama Canal, a round-trip of 8,700 nautical miles . Post World War II, four ships were given C5 class type C5-S-78a, these were roll-on/roll-off container ship built by Ingalls Shipbuilding, Inc. of Pascagoula, Mississippi and operated by the Moore-McCormack Lines. The C5-S-78a had a deadweight tonnage of 16,000 tons.
Type C8-class ships are a type of Heavy Lift Barge Carrier. Type C8 ships were the 8th type of ship designed by the United States Maritime Commission (MARCOM) in the late 1960s. As done with the Type C1 ships and Type C2 ships, MARCOM circulated preliminary plans for comment. The design presented was not specific to any service or trade route. Type C8 ships measuring 876 feet (267 m) from stem to stern, and designed to make 16.2 knots.
