Types of Ships

Types of ships based on nature of

cargo
• Tankers
• Tankers can range in size of capacity from
several hundred tons, which includes vessels
for servicing small harbours and coastal
settlements, to several hundred thousand
tons, for long-range haulage. Besides ocean-
or seagoing tankers there are also specialized
inland-waterway tankers which operate on
rivers and canals with an average cargo
capacity up to some thousand tons. A wide
range of products are carried by tankers,
including:
• hydrocarbon products such as oil, liquefied
petroleum gas (LPG), and liquefied natural gas
(LNG)
• chemicals, such as ammonia, chlorine, and
styrene monomer
• fresh water
• wine
• molasses
• Different products require different handling and
transport, with specialised variants such as "chemical
tankers", "oil tankers", and "LNG carriers" developed to
handle dangerous chemicals, oil and oil-derived
products, and liquefied natural gas respectively. These
broad variants may be further differentiated with
respect to ability to carry only a single product or
simultaneously transport mixed cargoes such as several
different chemicals or refined petroleum products.[1]
Among oil tankers, supertankers are designed for
transporting oil around the Horn of Africa from the
Middle East. The supertanker Seawise Giant, scrapped
in 2010, was 458 meters (1,503 ft) in length and 69
meters (226 ft) wide. Supertankers are one of the three
preferred methods for transporting large quantities of
oil, along with pipeline transport and rail.
 Bulk Carrier
• A bulk carrier, bulk freighter, or bulker is a
merchant ship specially designed to transport
unpackaged bulk cargo, such as grains, coal,
ore, and cement in its cargo holds.
• Today's bulkers are specially designed to
maximize capacity, safety, efficiency, and to be
able to withstand the rigours of their work.
• Today, bulkers make up 15% - 17% of the
world's merchant fleets and range in size from
single-hold mini-bulkers to mammoth ore
ships able to carry 400,000 metric tons of
deadweight (DWT). A number of specialized
designs exist: some can unload their own
cargo, some depend on port facilities for
unloading. Bulk cargo can be very dense,
corrosive, or abrasive. This can present safety
problems: cargo shifting, spontaneous
combustion, and cargo saturation can
threaten a ship.
• A bulk carrier is any ship that carries dry
unpackaged goods. Multipurpose cargo ships
can carry bulk cargo, but can also carry other
cargoes and are not specifically designed for
bulk carriage. The term "dry bulk carrier" is
used to distinguish bulkers from bulk liquid
carriers such as oil, chemical, or liquefied
petroleum gas carriers. Very small bulkers are
almost indistinguishable from general cargo
ships, and they are often classified based
more on the ship's use than its design.
• A number of abbreviations are used to
describe bulkers. "OBO" describes a bulker
which carries a combination of ore, bulk, and
oil, and "O/O" is used for combination oil and
ore carriers. The terms "VLOC," "VLBC,"
"ULOC," and "ULBC" for very large and ultra
large ore and bulk carriers were adapted from
the supertanker designations very large crude
carrier and ultra large crude carrier.
 Refrigerated Cargo Ships

• A reefer ship is a refrigerated cargo ship; a

type of ship typically used to transport
perishable commodities which require
temperature-controlled transportation, such
as fruit, meat, fish, vegetables, dairy products
and other foods.
• Reefer ships may be categorised into three types.

1 Side-door vessels have water tight ports on the

ships hull, which open into a cargo hold. Elevators
or ramps leading from the quay serve as loading
and discharging access for the forklifts or
conveyors. Inside these access ports or side
doors, pallet lifts or another series of conveyors
bring the cargo to the respective decks. This
special design makes the vessels particularly well
suited for inclement weather operations as the
tops of the cargo holds are always closed against
rain and sun.
2 Conventional vessels have a traditional cargo
operation with top opening hatches and
cranes/derricks. On such ships, when facing
wet weather, the hatches need to be closed to
prevent heavy rain from flooding the holds.
Both above ship types are well suited for the
handling of palletized and loose cargo.
3 Refrigerated container ships are specifically
designed to carry containerised unit loads where
each container has its individual refrigerated unit.
These containers are nearly always twenty-foot
equivalent units (often called TEU) that are the
"standard" container cargo size that are loaded
and unloaded at container terminals and aboard
container ships. These ships differ from
conventional container ships in their design and
power generation and electrical distribution
equipment. They need provisions made for
powering each container's cooling system.
Because of their ease of loading and unloading
cargo many container ships are now being built
or redesigned to carry refrigerated containers.
• A major use of refrigerated cargo hold type
ships was for the transportation of bananas
and frozen meat but most of these ships have
been partly replaced by refrigerated
containers that have a refrigeration systems
attached to the rear end of the container.
While on a ship these containers are plugged
into an electrical outlet that ties into the ship's
power generation.
 RO-RO (Roll On – Roll Off)
• Types of RORO vessels include ferries, cruise
ferries, cargo ships, barges.
• New automobiles that are transported by ship
are often moved on a large type of RORO called a
pure car carrier (PCC) or pure car/truck carrier
(PCTC).
• The roll-on/roll-off ship is one of the most
successful types operating today. Its flexibility,
ability to integrate with other transport systems
and speed of operation have made it extremely
popular on many shipping routes.
 Container Ship

• Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of

their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a
technique called containerization. They are a
common means of commercial intermodal freight
transport and now carry most seagoing non-bulk
cargo.
• Container ship capacity is measured in twenty-
foot equivalent units (TEU). Typical loads are a
mix of 20-foot and 40-foot (2-TEU) ISO-standard
containers, with the latter predominant.
• Container ships are distinguished into 7 major
size categories: small feeder, feeder,
feedermax, panamax, post-panamax, new
panamax and ultra-large. As of December
2012, there are 161 container ships in the
VLCS class (Very Large Container Ships, more
than 10,000 TEU), and 51 ports in the world
can accommodate them.
 Gas Tankers
• There are basically three types of gas carrier ships:
• 1) LPG Carrier: Liquefied petroleum gas Ships carries
LPG gas along with some other gases like ammonia,
propylene, ethylene as their construction and
equipments are suited to carry such gases also.
• 2) LNG carrier: LNG gas or Liquefied Natural gas
from which, major impurities like sulphur and carbon
dioxide have been removed, is carried in LNG carrier
ships. LNG is transported in the form of liquefied
methane after cooling it to its boiling point, – 163 ̊C
• 3) Chemical gases: Like liquid ammonia
• Liquified gases can be carried by sea in 3
different ways.
• 1) It is solely under pressure maintained at
ambient temperature.
• 2) It is fully refrigerated at its boiling point.
• 3) It is semi refrigerated but at elevated
temperature and elevated pressure
Inside of a LNG Carrier
Inside of a prismatic membrane cargo
tank
 Chemical Tankers
• A chemical tanker is a type of tanker designed to
transport chemicals in bulk.
• Ocean-going chemical tankers generally range
from 5,000 metric tons deadweight (DWT) to
40,000 DWT in size, which is considerably smaller
than the average size of other tanker types due to
the specialised nature of their cargoes and the
size restrictions of the port terminals where they
call to load and discharge.
• Chemical tankers normally have a series of
separate cargo tanks which are either coated with
specialised coatings such as phenolic epoxy or
zinc paint, or made from stainless steel. The
coating or cargo tank material determines what
types of cargo a particular tank can carry:
stainless steel tanks are required for aggressive
acid cargoes such as sulfuric and phosphoric acid,
while 'easier' cargoes - e.g. vegetable oil - can be
carried in epoxy coated tanks.
 Tugs

• A tugboat (tug) is a boat that maneuvers

vessels by pushing or towing them. Tugs move
vessels that either should not move
themselves, such as ships in a crowded harbor
or a narrow canal, or those that cannot move
by themselves, such as barges, disabled ships,
or oil platforms. Tugboats are powerful for
their size and strongly built, and some are
ocean-going
• Tugboats are highly maneuverable, and
various propulsion systems have been
developed to increase maneuverability and
increase safety.
• A tugboat's power is typically stated by its
engine's horsepower and its overall bollard
pull
 Livestock Carrier
• Subject to appropriate regulation, live animals
may be transported as part of the cargo on
various classes of ship. That particular method of
transportation is more common on short sea
crossings and usually involves relatively small
numbers of animals. Livestock carriers are those
ships, which specialize exclusively in the
transportation of large numbers of live animals
together with their requirements for the voyage.
(food, water, sawdust bedding, medication, etc.).
Voyages on livestock carriers generally last from
three days to three to four weeks.