A cargo ship or freighter is a merchant ship that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year, handling the bulk of international trade. Cargo ships are usually specially designed for the task, often being equipped with cranes and other mechanisms to load and unload, and come in all sizes. Today, they are almost always built of welded steel, and with some exceptions generally have a life expectancy of 25 to 30 years before being scrapped.
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 bulk carrier or bulker is a merchant ship specially designed to transport unpackaged bulk cargo—such as grain, coal, ore, steel coils, and cement—in its cargo holds. Since the first specialized bulk carrier was built in 1852, economic forces have led to increased size and sophistication of these ships. Today's bulk carriers are specially designed to maximize capacity, safety, efficiency, and durability.
Capesize ships are the largest dry cargo ships with ball mark dimension: about 170,000 DWT capacity, 290 m long, 45 m beam (wide), 18m draught. They are too large to transit the Suez Canal or Panama Canal, and so have to pass either Cape Agulhas or Cape Horn to traverse between oceans.
MS Berge Stahl was a bulk carrier. Until the delivery of MS Vale Brasil in 2011 she was the longest and largest iron ore carrier in the world. She was registered in Comoros. Before that, she was registered in Douglas, Isle of Man, Stavanger, Norway as well as in Monrovia, Liberia.
Umiak I is a purpose-built ice-strengthened bulk carrier constructed for the Voisey's Bay Nickel Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Vale, to transport ore from the Voisey's Bay Mine.
Handysize is a naval architecture term for smaller bulk carriers or oil tanker with deadweight of up to 50,000 tonnes, although there is no official definition in terms of exact tonnages. Handysize is also sometimes used to refer to the span of up to 60,000 tons, with the vessels above 35,000 tonnes referred to as Handymax or Supramax.
An ore-bulk-oil carrier, also known as combination carrier or OBO, is a ship designed to be capable of carrying wet or dry cargoes. The idea is to reduce the number of empty (ballast) voyages, in which large ships only carry a cargo one way and return empty for another. These are a feature of the larger bulk trades.
Chinamax is a standard of ship measurements that allow conforming ships to use various harbours when fully laden, the maximum size of such a ship being 24 m (79 ft) draft, 65 m (213 ft) beam and 360 m (1,180 ft) length overall. An example of ships of this size is the Valemax bulk carriers.
In shipping, the stowage factor indicates how many cubic metres of space one tonne of a particular type of cargo occupies in a hold of a cargo ship. It is calculated as the ratio of the stowage space required under normal conditions, including the stowage losses caused by the means of transportation and packaging, to the weight of the cargo. The stowage factor can be used in ship design and as a reference to evaluate the efficiency of use of the cargo space on a ship.
Valemax ships are a fleet of very large ore carriers (VLOC) owned or chartered by the Brazilian mining company Vale S.A. to carry iron ore from Brazil to European and Asian ports. With a capacity ranging from 380,000 to 400,000 tons deadweight, the vessels meet the Chinamax standard of ship measurements for limits on draft and beam. Valemax ships are the largest bulk carriers ever constructed, when measuring deadweight tonnage or length overall, and are amongst the longest ships of any type currently in service.
MV Vale Rio de Janeiro, owned by the Brazilian mining company Vale, is one of the world's largest very large ore carriers and a sister ship of Vale Brasil. Designed to carry iron ore from Brazil to Asia along the Cape route around South Africa, she is the second of seven 400,000-tonne very large ore carriers (VLOC) ordered by Vale from Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in South Korea and twelve from Jiangsu Rongsheng Heavy Industries in China. While close to the specifications of Chinamax, these ships are generally referred to as Valemax vessels by Vale.
Algoma Mariner is a Canadian lake freighter delivered to Algoma Central on 31 May 2011. The bulk carrier was the first new Canadian-flagged vessel on the Great Lakes in 25 years. Algoma Mariner is a Seawaymax vessel, designed to carry dry bulk through the Saint Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes. The vessel was constructed at the Chengxi Shipyard in China and is currently in service.
MS Windoc was a lake freighter or laker, initially constructed as an ocean-going bulk carrier in West Germany in 1959. Entering service that year as Rhine Ore, the ship was renamed Steelcliffe Hall in 1977 and reconstructed as a laker. In 1988 the laker was renamed Windoc and in 2001, was involved in a collision with a bridge on the Welland Canal which caused the ship to catch fire. The ship was declared a constructive total loss. While undergoing repairs in Ontario, the ship broke free of its moorings and grounded. Later pulled free, the vessel was eventually converted into a barge.
MS Nordic Orion is a Danish bulk carrier registered in Panama City. A coal and ore carrier, Nordic Orion has a capacity of 75,603 tonnes deadweight (DWT). It was built in 2011 by Oshima Shipbuilding. Nordic Orion has an ice-strengthened hull, and it is notable for being the first large sea freighter to transit the Arctic Northwest Passage. It is owned and operated by Nordic Bulk Carriers.
Thunder Bay is a Trillium-class lake freighter cargo vessel, built and launched in China in 2013. The ship is owned, and operated on the Great Lakes, by the Canada Steamship Lines (CSL). Like her three sister ships in CSL's Trillium class, Baie St. Paul, Baie Comeau, and Whitefish Bay, the vessel is a self-unloading bulk carrier, with a conveyor belt on a long boom that can be deployed over port or starboard sides.
Nunavik is an icebreaking bulk carrier owned and operated by the Canadian shipping company Fednav. She is used to transport copper and nickel from the Nunavik Nickel Project, making 7–8 round trips per year.
Algogulf was the third and last name of a bulk carrier launched in 1961, laid-up in 1999, and scrapped in 2002. The ship began her career in 1961 as J.N. McWatters, the second vessel of that name operated by the Misener Shipping Company. The bulk carrier was used to transport primarily grain and iron ore in the Saint Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes. In 1991, the vessel was renamed Scott Misener by the company, the fourth of that name. In 1994, the ship was acquired by Algoma Central and renamed Algogulf, the second vessel of the name. The ship was laid up in 1999 and sold for scrapping in 2002.
MV Stellar Daisy was a South Korean-owned very large ore carrier (VLOC) that sank on March 31, 2017 in the South Atlantic off the coast of Uruguay while on a voyage from Brazil to China. She was the largest ship, by a factor of nearly 2 on gross tonnage, to be lost at sea.
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