Shipping Industry

I

Introduction

Shipping Industry, the industry devoted to moving goods and passengers by water. More than 90 per cent of all international trade is transported by sea. Each year the world’s merchant fleets now carry several billion tonnes of bulk raw materials such as crude oil, refined petroleum, mineral ores, coal, timber, and grain. They also transport a huge volume of manufactured goods, mostly in standard containers.

Air travel has totally displaced the long-haul passenger services once operated by grand and famous ocean liners like the Queen Mary. But many passengers are still carried by ferries, usually over short distances, and the popularity of holidays at sea in recent years has led to the construction of many large cruise liners.

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History

Commercial shipping probably began in the Mediterranean Sea where the merchants of Phoenicia owned ships and traded widely. Many of their practices were adopted by Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. Later, in the Middle Ages, the merchants of Venice carried on and further refined these practices. Even today, commercial shipping practices associated with marine insurance and the carriage of goods can still be traced to those early roots.

From the 15th to the 18th centuries, deep-sea shipping was closely linked to colonial trade, especially that of the Spanish Empire, the Portuguese Empire, the Dutch Empire, and the British Empire, and to the growth of the great enterprises like the Hudson’s Bay Company and the East India Companies.

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Advances in the 19th Century

Many of the developments that characterize the modern shipping industry began in the 19th century.

In 1818 the Black Ball Line initiated the first scheduled service with the sailing of the James Monroe from New York to Liverpool. The following year the Savannah crossed the Atlantic Ocean, using steam propulsion for much of the way, and in 1838 the British vessel Sirius made the first crossing entirely under steam. A decade later ship design and construction was revolutionized by naval architectural innovations introduced by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in the Great Western, Great Britain, and Great Eastern.

The completion of the Suez Canal in 1869 opened up new trade routes and the possibility of regular shipping services between Europe and the East. Around the same time, the sailing vessel Elizabeth carried the first mineral oil cargo and a few years later, in 1886, the first modern ocean-going tanker Glückauf entered service.

During the last years of the 19th century, many large and luxurious passenger liners were built to meet the growing demand for international travel, both by the rich and by emigrants seeking new lives. The steam turbine, invented by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884, enabled some passenger vessels to achieve speeds in excess of 20 knots.

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The 20th Century

In 1912 the Danish vessel Selandia became the first sea-going ship with a diesel engine. Today most merchant ships have diesel engines, usually connected to a single propeller. Steam propulsion has now almost disappeared, and nuclear propulsion, installed experimentally in the Savannah, Otto Hahn, and Mutsu, has been abandoned for merchant ships, although it is still widely used in warships.

Since World War II, merchant ships have become generally larger, faster and more specialized. Many tankers of more than 200,000 tonnes deadweight have been built. The Batillus, one of the largest built in the 1970s, was more than 600,000 tonnes deadweight. Bulk ore carriers of more than 100,000 tonnes deadweight are common. Today most manufactured goods are transported by ships specially designed to carry standard containers. The largest, like the Regina Maersk, are around 350 m (1,150 ft) long and are capable of carrying more than 6,000 containers.