A merchant vessel is a ship that transports cargo or passengers.

Most countries of the world operate fleets of merchant ships. However, due to the high costs of
operations, today these fleets are in many cases sailing under the flags of nations that specialize
in providing manpower and services at favourable terms. Such flags are known as "flags of
convenience". Currently, Liberia and Panama are particularly favoured. Ownership of the vessels
can be by any country, however.

The Greek-owned fleet is the largest in the world. Today, the Greek fleet accounts for some 16
per cent of the world’s tonnage; this makes it currently the largest single international merchant
fleet in the world, albeit not the largest in history.[1]

In English, "Merchant Navy" without further clarification is used to refer to the British Merchant
Navy; the United States merchant fleet is known as the United States Merchant Marine.

During wars, merchant ships may be used as auxiliaries to the navies of their respective
countries, and are called upon to deliver military personnel and material.

Merchant ship categories

1)A cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship or vessel that carries cargo, 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, often being equipped with cranes and other mechanisms to load and unload, and come in all
sizes.

Dry cargo ships today are mainly bulk carriers and container ships. Bulk carriers or bulkers are
used for the transportation of homogeneous cargo such as coal, rubber, copra, tin, and wheat.
Container ships are used for the carriage of miscellaneous goods.
Sizes of cargo ships
Cargo ships are categorized partly by capacity, partly by weight, and partly by dimensions (often
with reference to the various canals and canal locks they fit through). Common categories
include:

 Dry Cargo
o Small Handy size, carriers of 20,000 long tons deadweight (DWT)-28,000 DWT
o Handy size, carriers of 28,000-40,000 DWT
 Seawaymax, the largest size that can traverse the St Lawrence Seaway
o Handymax, carriers of 40,000-50,000 DWT
o Panamax, the largest size that can traverse the Panama Canal (generally: vessels with a
width smaller than 32.2 m)
o Capesize, vessels larger than Panamax and Post-Panamax, and must traverse the Cape
of Good Hope and Cape Horn to travel between oceans

 Wet Cargo
o Aframax, oil tankers between 75,000 and 115,000 DWT. This is the largest size defined
by the average freight rate assessment (AFRA) scheme.
o Suezmax, the largest size that can traverse the Suez Canal
o VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier), supertankers between 150,000 and 320,000 DWT.
 Malaccamax, the largest size that can traverse the Strait of Malacca
o ULCC (Ultra Large Crude Carrier), enormous supertankers between 320,000 and
550,000 DWT


Vessel prefixes
A category designation appears before the vessel's name. Naval ships, for example, have "USS"
(United States Ship), "HMS" (Her/His Majesty's Ship), "HTMS" (His Thai Majesty's Ship).
Merchant ships may have "RMS (Royal Mail Ship, usually a passenger liner), "MV" (Motor
Vessel, powered by Diesel). "SS" (Steam Ship, now seldom seen, powered by steam). "TS",
sometimes found in first position before a merchant ship's prefix, denotes that it is a Turbine
Steamer. (For further discussion, see Ship prefixes.)

Famous cargo ships include the Liberty ships of World War II, partly based on a British design.
Liberty ship sections were prefabricated in locations across the USA and then assembled by
shipbuilders in an average of six weeks, with the record just over four days. These ships allowed
the Allies to replace sunken cargo vessels at a rate greater than the Kriegsmarine's U-boats could
sink them, and contributed significantly to the war effort, the delivery of supplies, and eventual
victory over the Axis powers.

Lake freighters built for the Great Lakes in North America differ in design from "salties" because
of the difference in wave size and frequency in the lakes. A number of these boats are so large
that they cannot leave the lakes because they do not fit into the locks on the Saint Lawrence
Seaway.
2)Bulk carriers
A bulk carrier is ocean-going vessel used to transport bulk cargo items such as iron ore,
bauxite, coal, cement, grain and similar cargo. Bulk carriers can be recognized by large box-like
hatches on deck, designed to slide outboard or fold fore-and-aft to enable access for loading or
discharging cargo. The dimensions of bulk carriers are often determined by the ports and sea
routes that they need to serve, and by the maximum width of the Panama Canal. Most lakes are
too small to accommodate bulk carriers, but a large fleet of lake freighters has been plying the
Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway of North America for over a century.

Tankers

A tanker is a ship designed to transport liquids in bulk.

Tankers for the transport of fluids, such as crude oil, petroleum products, liquefied petroleum
gas, liquefied natural gas and chemicals, also vegetable oils, wine and other food - the tanker
sector comprises one third of the world tonnage.

Tankers can range in size from several hundred tons, designed for servicing small harbours and
coastal settlements, to several hundred thousand tons, with these being designed for long-range
haulage. A wide range of products are carried by tankers, including:

 hydrocarbon products such as oil, LPG, and LNG

 Chemicals, such as ammonia, chlorine, and styrene monomer
 fresh water
 wine
Different products require different handling and transport, thus special types of tankers have
been built, such as "chemical tankers" and "oil tankers". "LNG carriers" as they are typically
known, are a relatively rare tanker designed to carry liquefied natural gas.

Among oil tankers, supertankers were designed for carrying oil around the Horn of Africa from
the Middle East; the FSO Knock Nevis being the largest vessel in the world, a ULCC supertanker
formerly known as Jahre Viking (Seawise Giant). It has a deadweight of 565 thousand metric
tons and length of about 500 meters. The use of such large ships is in fact very unprofitable, due
to the inability to operate them at full cargo capacity; hence, production supertankers has
currently ceased. Today's largest oil tankers in comparison by gross tonnage are TI Europe, TI
Asia, TI Oceania, which are the largest sailing vessels today. But even with their deadweight of
441,585 metric tons, sailing as VLCC most of the time, they do not use more than 70% of their
total capacity.

Apart from pipeline transport, supertankers are the only method for transporting large quantities
of oil, although such tankers have caused large environmental disasters when sinking close to
coastal regions, causing oil spills. See Exxon Valdez, Braer, Prestige, Torrey Canyon, Erika, for
examples of tankers that have caused oil spills.

Specialized ships

Specialized ships, e.g. for heavy lift goods or refrigerated cargo (Reefer ships), roll-on/roll-off
cargo (RoRo) ships for vehicles and wheeled machinery. These ships are not very well
developed, except those used as car carriers. Only this sector of Maritime Industry is well
developed. Largest roll-on/roll-off cargo (RoRo) ships are Sunbelt Spirit, Liberty (ex-Faust),
Phoenix Leader, Aquamarine ACE. They have a capacity of about 6 to 9 thousand units.

Coasters

oasters, smaller ships for any category of cargo which are normally not on ocean-crossing routes,
but in coastwise trades. Coasters are shallow-hulled ships used for trade between locations on the
same island or continent. Their shallow hulls mean that they can get through reefs where
seagoing ships usually cannot (seagoing ships have a very deep hull for supplies and trade etc.)

Coastal trading vessels, also known as coasters, are shallow-hulled ships used for trade
between locations on the same island or continent. Their shallow hulls mean that they can get
through reefs where deeper-hulled sea-going ships usually cannot.

coastal merchant vessel

Passenger ships

A passenger ship is a ship whose primary function is to carry passengers. The category does not include
cargo vessels which have accommodations for limited numbers of passengers, such as the formerly
ubiquitous twelve-passenger freighters in which the transport of passengers is secondary to the carriage
of freight. The type does however include many classes of ships which are designed to transport
substantial numbers of passengers as well as freight. Indeed, until recently virtually all ocean liners were
able to transport mail, package freight and express, and other cargo in addition to passenger luggage,
and were equipped with cargo holds and derricks, kingposts, or other cargo-handling gear for that
purpose. Modern cruiseferries have car decks for lorries as well as the passenger's cars. Only in more
recent ocean liners and in virtually all cruise ships has this cargo capacity been suppressed.

An ocean liner passenger ship, Queen Elizabeth 2

Types of passenger ship

Passenger ships include ferries, which are vessels for day or overnight short-sea trips moving
passengers and vehicles (whether road or rail); ocean liners, which typically are passenger or
passenger-cargo vessels transporting passengers and often cargo on longer line voyages; and
cruise ships, which often transport passengers on round-trips, in which the trip itself and the
attractions of the ship and ports visited are the principal draw.

An ocean liner is the traditional form of passenger ship. Once such liners operated on scheduled
line voyages to all inhabited parts of the world. With the advent of airliners transporting
passengers and specialized cargo vessels hauling freight, line voyages have almost died out. But
with their decline came an increase in sea trips for pleasure, and in the latter part of the 20th
century ocean liners gave way to cruise ships as the predominant form of large passenger ship,
with the main area of activity changing from the North Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean Sea.

Although some ships have characteristics of both types, the design priorities of the two forms are
different: ocean liners value speed and traditional luxury while cruise ships value amenities
(swimming pools, theaters, ball rooms, casinos, sports facilities, etc.) rather than speed. These
priorities produce different designs. In addition, ocean liners typically were built to cross the
Atlantic Ocean between Europe and the United States or travel even further to South America or
Asia while cruise ships typically serve shorter routes with more stops along coastlines or among
various islands.

For a long time cruise ships were smaller than the old ocean liners had been, but in the 1980s this
changed when Knut Kloster, the director of Norwegian Caribbean Lines, bought one of the
biggest surviving liners, the SS France, and transformed her into a huge cruise ship, which he
renamed the SS Norway. Her success demonstrated that there was a market for large cruise ships.
Successive classes of ever-larger ships were ordered, until the Cunard liner Queen Elizabeth was
finally dethroned from her 56-year reign as the largest passenger ship ever built (a dethronement
that led to numerous further dethronements from the same position).

Both the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) (1969) and her successor as Cunard's flagship
RMS  Queen Mary 2 (QM2), which entered service in 2004, are of hybrid construction. Like
transatlantic ocean liners, they are fast ships and strongly built to withstand the rigors of the
North Atlantic in line voyage service,[1] but both ships are also designed to operate as cruise
ships, with the amenities expected in that trade. QM2 superseded the of the Seas]] of the Royal
Caribbean line as the largest passenger ship ever built, and in turn was surpassed by Royal
Caribbean's cruise ship however QM2 still hold the record for the 'LARGEST OCEAN LINER'
built Freedom of the Seas. The latter ship, and her sisters, were superseded by ships of the Oasis
Class delivered in November 2009

Measures of size

By convention and long usage, the size of civilian passenger ships is measured by gross tonnage,
which is a measure of enclosed volume. Gross tonnage is not a measure of weight, although the
two concepts are often confused. Weight is measured by displacement, which is the conventional
means of measuring naval vessels. Often a passenger ship is stated to "weigh" or "displace" a
certain "tonnage," but the figure given nearly always refers to gross tons.

While a high displacement can indicate better sea keeping abilities,[3] gross tonnage is promoted
as the most important measure of size for passengers, as the ratio of gross tonnage per passenger
– the Passenger/Space Ratio – gives a sense of the spaciousness of a ship, an important
consideration in cruise liners where the onboard amenities are of high importance.[4][5]

Gross tonnage normally is a much higher value than displacement. This was not always the case;
as the functions, engineering and architecture of ships have changed, the gross tonnage figures of
the largest passenger ships have risen substantially, while the displacements of such ships have
not. RMS Titanic, with a gross tonnage of 46,329, but a displacement reported at over 52,000
tons,[6] was heavier than contemporary 100,000 – 110,000 gross ton cruise ships which displace
only around 50,000 tons. Similarly, the Cunard Line's RMS  Queen Mary and RMS  Queen
Elizabeth, of approximately 81,000 – 83,000 gross tons, but displacements of over 80,000 tons,[7]
do not differ significantly in displacement from their new 151,000 gross ton successor,
RMS  Queen Mary 2, which has been estimated to displace approximately 76,000 tons,[8] or from
the even newer 154,407 gross ton MS Freedom of the Seas,[9] which is also estimated to displace
in the range of 75 – 80,000 tons.[10] With the completion in 2009 of Oasis of the Seas, the first of
the Oasis Class ships, the Cunard Queens of the 1930s have clearly been passed in displacement,
as the Oasis vessels were projected to displace about 100,000 tons.[11]

However, by the conventional and historical measure of gross tonnage, there has been a recent
dramatic increase in the size of the largest new ships. The Oasis of the Seas measures over
225,000 gross tons, over twice as large as the largest cruise ships of the late 1990s.

An ocean liner, Normandie

A cruise ship, Freedom of the Seas

A ferry, Mega Smeralda

Cruise ships

A cruise ship or a cruise liner is a passenger ship used for pleasure voyages, where the voyage
itself and the ship's amenities are considered an essential part of the experience. Cruising has
become a major part of the tourism industry, with millions of passengers each year as of 2008.
The industry's rapid growth has seen nine or more newly built ships catering to a North
American clientele added every year since 1978, as well as others servicing European clientele.
Smaller markets such as the Asia-Pacific region are generally serviced by older tonnage
displaced by new ships introduced into the high growth areas.

Cruise ships operate on a mostly set roundabout course or round trips (i.e. they tend to return to
their originating port) whereas ocean liners are defined by actually doing ocean-crossing
voyages, which may not lead back to the same port for years.[2]