Freighters and Barges

Cargo ships on the Rhine

Cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship that carries 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, being equipped with cranes and other mechanisms to load and unload, and come in all sizes.

Specialized types of cargo vessels include container ships and bulk carriers. (Technically tankers and supertankers are cargo ships, although they are habitually thought of as a separate category.)

The earliest records of waterborne activity mention the carriage of items for trade; the evidence of history and archaeology shows the practice to be widespread by the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. The desire to operate trade routes over longer distances and at more seasons of the year motivated improvements in ship design during the Middle Ages.

Before the middle of the 19th century, the incidence of piracy resulted in most cargo ships being armed, sometimes quite heavily, as in the case of the Manila galleons and East Indiamen.

Piracy is still quite common in some of the waters roughly around Asia, most notably in the Malacca Straits, a narrow channel between Indonesia and Singapore / Malaysia. In 2004, the governments of those three nations agreed to provide better protection for the ships passing through the Straits. Also piracy prone are the waters off Somalia and Nigeria, whilst smaller vessels are also in danger along parts of the south-american coast.

While the definitions have become "cross-pollinated" over the years, "cargo" technically refers to the goods carried aboard the ship for hire, while "freight" refers to the compensation the ship receives for carrying the cargo.

Generally, the modern ocean shipping business is divided into two classes:

1. Liner business: typically (but not exclusively) container vessels (wherein "general cargo" is carried in 20 or 40-foot "boxes"), operating as "common carriers", calling a regular-published schedule of ports. A Common Carrier refers to a regulated service where any member of the public may book cargo for shipment, according to long-established and internationally agreed rules.

2. Tramp-tanker business: generally this is private business arranged between the shipper and receiver and facilitated by the vessel owners or operators, who offer their vessels for hire to carry bulk (dry or liquid) or break-bulk (cargoes with individually handled pieces) to any suitable port(s) in the world, according to a specifically drawn contract called a Charter Party.

Larger cargo ships are generally operated by shipping lines, companies who specialize in the handling of cargo in general. Smaller vessels, such as coasters, are often owned by their operators.

Merchant vessels usually carry the designation M/V for "Motor Vessel". It is used as part of a ship's name, such as "M/V Independence", similarly to how "SS" (now seldom used) stands for "Steam Ship" in names such as SS Uganda.

Famous cargo ships would include the liberty ships of World War II which were prefabricated all over the USA and then assembled by the coast in an average of 6 weeks and as little as 4 days. These allowed the allies to replace cargo vessels faster that the Kriegsmarine's U-boats could sink them and contributed significantly to the ability of the Allies to keep Britain in the war and build up men and equipment for the D-Day landings.

Sizes of cargo ships

Cargo ships are categorised partly by their capacity and partly by their dimensions (often with reference to the various canals and canal locks through which they can travel). Some common categories include:

• Small Handy size, carriers of 20,000-28,000 deadweight tonnage
• Handy size, carriers of 28,000-40,000 deadweight tonnage
• Handymax, carriers of 40,000-50,000 dwt
• Seawaymax, the largest size which can traverse the St Lawrence Seaway
• Aframax, oil tankers between 75,000 and 115,000 dwt. This is the largest size defined by the average freight rate assessment (AFRA) scheme.
• Suezmax, the largest size which can traverse the Suez Canal
• Panamax, the largest size which can traverse the Panama Canal (generally: vessels with a width smaller than 32.2 meter)
• Capesize, vessels larger than Panamax and Suezmax, which must traverse the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn in order to travel between oceans
• VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier), supertankers between 150,000 and 320,000 dwt
• ULCC (Ultra Large Crude Carrier), enormous supertankers between 320,000 and 550,000 dwt

References

• Vessel size groups

For other uses, see Barge (disambiguation).

Self propelled barge carrying bulk crushed stone

A barge is a flat-bottomed boat, built mainly for river and canal transport of heavy goods. Most barges are not self-propelled and need to be moved by tugboats towing or pushing them. Barges on canals (towed by draft animals on an adjacent towpath) contended with the railway in the early industrial revolution but were outcompeted in the carriage of high value items due to the higher speed, falling costs, and route flexibility of rail transport. Barges are still used today for low value bulk items, as the cost of hauling goods by barge is very low.

Self propelled barges may be used as such when traveling downstream or upstream in placid waters and operated as an unpowered barge with the assistance of a tugboat when traveling upstream in faster waters.

Types of barges:

• Barracks barge (living quarters)
• Dry bulk cargo barge (coal, rock, grain, etc.)
• Liquid cargo barge (fresh water, finished petroleum products)
• Railcar barge (with tracks and using special loading/offloading facilities such as a barge slip)
• Vehicular barge, often used to transport vehicles to natural shorelines such as beaches
• Royal barge (ceremonial)
• Lighter

On the UK canal system, the term barge is used to describe a boat wider than a narrowboat.

The people who move barges are often known as lightermen.

In the U.S. deckhands perform the labor and are supervised by a leadman and or the mate. The Captain and Pilot steer the towboat. The towboat pushes one or more barges that are held together with rigging and is called collectively the tow. The crew live aboard the towboat as it travels along the inland river system and or the intracoastal waterways. These towboats travel between ports and are also called line haul boats.

A barge pole is used by lightermen to fend off the barge as it nears other vessels or a wharf. These long poles have given rise to the saying, "I wouldn't touch that (subject/thing) with a barge pole." The meaning is that something is so unseemly or contentious that the person wants to avoid it or being associated with it at all costs. A common variation is to say, "I wouldn't touch that with a (insert length) barge pole." Typically the length for small avoidance is "ten foot": The greater the length, the more the sayer feels it is to be avoided.

The barge pole mentioned above is properly called a "pike pole."

Etymology

barge is attested from 1300, from Old French barge, from Vulgar Latin barga. The word originally could refer to any small boat, the modern meaning arose around 1480. bark "small ship" is attested from 1420, from Old French barque, from Vulgar Latin barca (400 AD). The more precise meaning "three-masted ship" arose in the 17th century, and often takes the French spelling for disambiguation.

Both are probably derived from a Latin *barica, from Greek baris "Egyptian boat", ultimately from m Coptic bari "small boat."

External links

• DBA - Dutch Barge Association Living aboard ex-commercial barges or any other type of broad-beam inland waterways craft

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