Economic Role of The Shipping Industry By Cale Ryan

Economic Role of The Shipping Industry

By: Cale Ryan

Introduction • Ocean Transportation is one of the most familiar components of the international supply chain. We can offer a single-source solution to and from any point through our services coordinated with reliable shipping lines. We work closely with an extensive portfolio of global and regional carriers; providing you with the best solutions and keeping you informed of your shipment status at every step.

Types of Ocean Transport • • • • • • •

Coastal shipping General cargo ships Container ships Auto carriers Fishing vessels Passenger ships Specialized ships

Coastal shipping •

This type of transport is used for carrying goods from one place to another within the country. The transport by steam ship in the coastal areas is the best example of coastal shipping. It is used for carrying heavy and bulky traffic over a long distance.

General cargo ships •

These ships will mostly have four or five holds (a hold is the cargo space in a ship), with one or, in a few cases, two holds aft of the engineroom, and four to five holds generally forward of the engineroom. They have long protruding rigging for winches by each hold. These winches are used to load and unload the cargo.

Container ships •

These ships are designed to carry large steel containers that are usually 20 feet or 40 feet long, eight feet wide and eight feet tall.

These ships are loaded and off loaded by large cranes to and from trucks. There are some that are also designed where the bow opens up and barges are pulled in that have containers on them.

Container ships are limited to ports that have container terminals.

Auto carriers •

These are huge ships that are nothing more than floating parking garages. They can hold between 2,000 and 4,000 vehicles. Ramps are lowered out of the side of the ship and the vehicles are driven off. The average auto carrier is about 600 feet long, 100 feet wide, and over 100 feet tall.

Fishing vessels •

Most people think of fishing vessels as being just boats, but in today's industrial world many of these vessels are as large as some ships and, in some cases, they are converted general cargo ships. The following are different types of fishing vessels:

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A. Fishing boats - These may be as long as 90 feet and will have refrigerated holds.

B. Processors - These ships not only catch fish, but also within them there is a factory to completely process the fish. The factory deck will be right under the main deck and the fish come in and they are cleaned, filleted and packaged.

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Passenger Ships •

Today passenger ships are mostly used as cruise ships, but there are still a few passenger ships that transport people from port to port for the purpose of transportation, rather than sightseeing. I have worked on only one such ship that took people from New Orleans to the Panama Canal.

Specialized Ships •

There are many ships that are constructed or converted for specialized purposes, like dredging, exploration, offshore construction, work gang ships (these are for housing workers in areas where there is no onshore living quarters), or for specialized cargo. For example, banana boats that are not much more than small general cargo ships. Banana boats are nasty damn ships, for down in their holds one may come across very large spiders.

• Cale Ryan is a successful businessman who offers the affordable services, SAP products, transportation and materials management, currently CEO of the EIKON International.