Ship Classification

There has never been a society so dependent on trade exchanges as

the one we live in today. We consume everything, and everything comes from various
different sites. From all over, in fact. These days, it is common to see
large ships that bring raw materials from poor countries and, on the journey
on their return, they take the final product.

Then a problem arises: how to transport large quantities of

load, from one point to another, keeping its low cost and in a way
quick? The answer to this question lies on the surface of the World Oceans,
holders of about 70% of the Earth's surface, and on large ships
merchants that cross it.

Since ancient times, Man has

realized the potential of the sea.
first ships, in the true sense of the
word, dates from 5000 BC and in 2000 BC.
a galley emerged, a type of ship that would help
civilizations dominating the Mediterranean.

Despite being sailing ships or rowing boats,

Great feats were achieved with these primitive ships. Ascoggas,
ships built in Northern Europe managed to cross the Atlantic
North, crossing icy seas and even reaching the Mediterranean.
[it is worth remembering that this is the center of world trade at the time]. There was,
for centuries, an evolution of these ships, translated into a huge
variety of designs, sizes, and finishes. However, a time in history
Humanity would be marked, among other things, by not having brought great
developments in the nautical world: the Middle Ages. During this period
for approximately 1,000 years, there have been few and small evolutions, such
like the advent of the gaff rig [13th century] or the castles at the bow and stern,
both examples developed during the military effort.

The subsequent centuries brought great advances. The 15th century marked the
development of three and four mast ships and the considerable
increase in the dimensions of the castles. The 18th and 19th centuries give to the sailboat
the perfect shapes and taller masts, with a larger sail area. In this
height, wooden ships are built with more than 2,000 TAB and
considerable speeds. They also mark the emergence of the Clippers,
very fast ships developed for the transportation of tea from China to
to Europe in three months. The most famous of these ships is the Cutty Sark,
launched into the water on November 22, 1869, the only tea clipper still
existing, preserved in the King William Walk, in Greenwich, London,
England, by the Thames River. [For more information,
visit[Link]
 Simultaneously with the appearance of the Clippers,
the first ships are also being developed
steel, lighter, stronger and more durable in
comparison with wood, and also the
first ships with mechanical propulsion. The
way that Man found to use the force of
a machine to propel a
the vessel was through paddle wheels, an adaptation of rowing, the only
means of propulsion, other than the sail, that he knew until then. However, James
Watt, in the second half of the eighteenth century [around 1775], developed the
first prototype of a screw propeller, adapted from Archimedes' screw, for
propel your ship 'Archimedes', which could reach speeds
of 7.5 knots with an 80 horsepower engine. It was also developed having
in view of a prototype of a submarine, something that was already in
development at the time, since the paddle wheels were
completely inefficient in this situation. However, it is due to F.R.
Smith and J. Ericsson's dissemination and promotion of the propeller as a means of
propulsion. In the adjacent image, we can see the ship BATILLUS during its
construction, at the shipyards of Saint Nazaire Chantiers de l'Atlantique and the
its huge propellers.

From the invention of the propeller and the steam engine to the present day
today was a leap, and to the creation of new specialized ships one
wink

Then arises the need to classify the ships. Citing the

Admiral Rogério S. d'Oliveira, former architecture professor
naval at the Naval School and current president of the Academy of
Navy, "to classify ships in a rational way and at the same
time with practical meaning would be a huge task that would encounter obstacles
with the greatest controversy. It is, however, customary to group together the
ships in somewhat conventional categories,
according to the aspects that are considered.

Thus, and aimed solely and exclusively at a classification of

merchant ships and the functions performed, we can group
practically any vessel in one of the following categories:

Transport ships:
General cargo ships;
Refrigerated vessels;
Bulk carriers;
Mineral carriers [specific case of bulk carriers];
Passenger ships;
Container ships;
Ships roll on roll off;
Tankers [a particular case of bulk carriers].

Fishing boats:
Trawling;
Tuna ships;
Lobster boats;
Line fishing;
Etc...

Auxiliary ships:
Batelões;
Pilot boats;
Dredging ships;
Lighthouses;
Navios FPSO;
Navios FSO;
Icebreakers
Tugs, among others...

It is worth noting that we can group the vessels according to parameters.

different, such as cargo transported [that this article addresses],
hull shape, type of propulsion, etc...]

But... what is a merchant ship?

The merchant ship is any vessel that performs a
commercial activity, whether maritime transport or fishing or
still providing maritime or port services.

Let's explain, then, what some of the mentioned ships consist of.
above, with the exception of fishing vessels.

Transport Ships

General cargo ship

It is a ship capable of transporting cargo of various kinds,

possibly having, for this purpose, cold storage facilities, tanks for liquids,
bulk cargo compartments, etc.

Reefer ship

It is a vessel suitable for transporting perishable goods that require

of refrigeration. It is, in general cases, a container ship
that has electrical sockets for all its slots, these sockets
used by refrigerated containers to maintain a temperature
appropriate.
 Due to the need to provide energy
electricity to all containers on board, the
fuel consumption is substantially
superior to that of a container ship.

In the image above, the ship CHIQUITA

ROSTOCK in Setúbal.

Bulk carrier

All and any vessel designed for the transport of goods to

bulk in holds intended for that purpose. They are usually large ships
dimensions, it is very common for bulk carriers to have capacity for
more than 200,000 tons of cargo. In the image next to it, we can see the
ship BERGE NORD, 300 meters long and capacity for
218.283 tons of
load.

Once the
bulk goods
there can be several
natures, and once
that there are ships
specialized in
transport of some of these goods, when we refer to 'a
"grain carrier", we talk about a grain carrier that transports dry bulk cargo.
In Lisbon, it is common to see bulk carriers of up to 120,000 DWT.
loaded with cereals for the silos of Trafaria or Beato, like the
ship NYON, on the left, of 39.161 TAB, loaded with grains for the silos
of Blessed.

Mineral ship

In addition to the simple grain elevators mentioned earlier, there are mineral ships.
[or as they are known, Ore ships], specialized in the transport of
heavy bulk cargo and mixed ships, or OBO Ships
Oil Bulk Ore, prepared to transport both hydrocarbons
as bulk dry cargo or ores, obviously, not simultaneously.

Passenger ship

As the name suggests, and for being the one that surely everyone knows to
departure in some way, is a vessel prepared for the transport of
people. According to Portuguese Legislation, a vessel that transports
commercially more than 12 people is considered a vessel of
passengers.
 A passenger ship can have various shapes
the sizes.

The cruise ships of the days of

today they descend from the ancients
liners, ships that
they regularly crossed the banks
in the Atlantic Ocean carrying
immigrants, refugees or simply anyone who wanted to go from
one margin to the other, with the maritime route being the only one
middle of doing it. With the advent of the airplane, transatlantic ships found themselves
forced to gradually convert into cruise ships.

Nowadays, we are witnessing a boom in the growth of packages,

large ships that carry wealthy passengers on a cruise
to paradisiacal places, providing a luxury service where everything is thought out
considering the client. They are huge structures that have no way
Objective to transport the largest number of people but provide for 2, 3
or 4 thousand passengers on board [according to the size of the vessel]
the greatest fun possible. For this, they are equipped with various pools,
cinemas, duty-free shops, bars, restaurants, spas, gyms
theaters, etc. In addition, they are equipped with control systems that
they reduce to a minimum the vibrations caused by the engines and the agitation
provoked by the ocean, for example. On the most modern ships, it is common
find azipods instead of the common propeller and rudder. This has several
advantages, the greatest of which is the lack of a rudder and consequent
greater maneuverability.

There are also ships made only for

cross the banks of a river. How
for example, we have many ferries and
catamarans in Lisbon and some others a little
throughout the country [Setúbal, Olhão, etc...]. Here, the
comfort is no longer the most important, but rather the
speed in entry, in travel, and in exit. Often, in the absence of
a road mode to cross the banks of a river or sea,
there are ships suitable for the simultaneous transport of people and
vehicles. In this case, these ships become ferries, or ships
Ro-Ro, according to size and its main function [see below the
definition of Roll on Roll off ship.

Container ships

They are certainly the future of the merchant navy and the current lords of
We see them everywhere, in all sizes. They are
characterized by being able to transport containerized cargo, having, for the
effect, guide cells in their compartments and anchoring systems of their own for
to arrange load above these. In the image on the side, we can see a holder-
medium containers [with a capacity of 1,512 TEU], CMA CGM
HUDSON, chartered by the French company CMA CGM. There are already several
ships with a capacity of 9,000 TEU and there are few with
capacity for 13,000 TEU under construction. One of them, the
new EMMA MÆRSK, whose capacity in TEUs is 13,460, to move the
its many tons will be powered by a Sulzer engine of 14
cylinders with a power of 120,000 BHP, approximately 88.235 kW
[for more information, see "The largest propeller in the world will be installed.
num MærskandNew details about the EMMA MÆRSK. It is worth mentioning that
in these ships we can mention their load capacity of two
ways: through its maximum size and through the maximum capacity of
TEU. Few are the cases where a ship manages to be loaded with the
maximum quantity of TEU possible, since before this happens
reaches its maximum size.

It is a specialized ship for

transport of a certain cargo: the container.
It can be stated with complete confidence that the
container is the perfect instrument for transportation
of load, for it is the one that minimizes
your handling during transport. To
opposite to other types of specialized transport [Ro-Ro, bulk,
tank, etc...], where the object of transport is the merchandise itself, in this it is the
container. Besides this, the container allows for greater interconnection with the
other means of transport and, therefore, a practically door-to-door transport
door, since its dimensions are such that it fits perfectly
both in ships, trucks, and in train cars. Upon arriving at
At the port, the container is unloaded onto a truck or train, and is ready to
to depart. In the case of bulk goods, this is simply not possible. In the
In the image on the side, you can see the ship HMS PORTUGAL, a small aircraft carrier.
containers that frequently scale Lisbon.

However, the advent of the container [see box], and the

subsequent development of the holder-
container, forced the Port Administrations to
create their own facilities for the
handling such loads, to change their
infrastructure.

The box that revolutionized the world

It was on April 26, 1956, that the ship IDEAL-X, from Sea-Land,
became the first container ship sailing from Port
Newark to Texas with 58 trailers.

The idea of containerized transport arose when Malcom

McLean, owner and operator of trucks, hoped that
they unloaded cotton from their trucks onto a ship, somewhere
 in the 1930s of the 20th century. Concluded that, with a few small
modifications, the entire truck could be transferred much more
efficiently and quickly. Years later, he founded the aforementioned Sea-
Land.

Today, a metallic casing of 6.1 meters or 12.2 meters of

the length [standard containers] is transportable
both by ship and by train or truck, instead of all the
truck as originally. In 2005, about 18 million of
containers made about 200 million trips.

This invention created a great stir, especially within the

stevedores. They were sure that their positions had
jobs were at risk, and many of them dealt with negotiating the
their future livelihood, struggling as they could, going on strikes and
protests.

As expected, the container appeared and reigned over the old one.
loading and unloading system, based on the manual labor of
dockworkers, mainly due to their speed and low cost. Inside
From a container, we can transport practically anything.
be foods that require refrigeration [since there are
refrigerated containers and some prepared container ships
to receive them, called "reefer ships" or materials already
worked, such as appliances, furniture, books, machines...

Roll-on roll-off ship

It is a ship prepared for the transportation of automobiles. It has decks.

spacious to accommodate various vehicles and access ramps for them
they enter by themselves [hence their name roll on roll of]. Once that
the port of these ships does not matter in terms of car transport, it uses-
if the deck area as a measure of its carrying capacity. In the image
next to it, we can see the ship REPUBBLICA DI ROMA, from Grimaldi Group,
Lisbon, which is also prepared for the
container transport.

The beginning of these ships has propulsion facilities

the gas turbine, turbines whose principle of
the operation is similar to that used in airplanes.
In fact, in some cases, after its use
aeronautical and for no longer satisfying the
Aviation security requirements are sold to equip such facilities.
once the safety levels of a jet engine in an airplane will have to
to be much superior to those required on a ship. This type of
correct installation advantages and disadvantages, the former being the
space economy and great power provided by these turbines;
Mondays are the great consumption of fuel and the need for
coupled reduction gears, to reduce the RPM [don't forget that the
turbines operate at high RPM and the propeller cannot cavitate.

Many of these vessels make regular connections between continents

[Europe - Africa, for example], having accommodations on board for
passengers. As an example, we have the ship LA SURPRISE, which, every 10
days, it calls at the ports of Setúbal, where it unloads and loads various
automobiles, Casablanca and later Vigo.

Tanker ship

It is a bulk carrier built for the transport of liquids, whether they are
oil and derivatives, liquefied gas, water, wine...

In the world, the largest tankers are, without any doubt

oil tankers, transporting crude from the rigs to the shore,
where it will be processed. They reached their peak in the 1970s, where
thousands of ships were built, many of them with larger size than
500,000 TAB [equivalent to 1,415,842.3296 kiloliters of crude] and a
length greater than 400 meters. In the two images beside, we can
see the ships BANKIMCHANDRA CHATTERJEE, with a capacity of 45,134
tons of crude, entering the Port of Lisbon through the South Bar, on the left,
It is the largest ship in the world, the JAHRE VIKING (later renamed KNOCK)
NEVISe transformed into an FSO, still in operation, measuring 458 meters
length and capacity for 564,761 tons of crude, in the shipyards
Kepel, where it was rebuilt, on the right. Both ships are oil tankers.
It is worth noting that this last ship was so large [and the other ULCCs]
that did not enter many of the world's ports. Unloaded its cargo
for other ships
minors, offshore.
Thus, I seldom saw
earth.

Not as big as
the oil workers, we have
the ships to
whites, so called for carrying
refined petroleum. They can transport both diesel and gasoline,
like Natural Gas or Liquefied Petroleum [having, in this case the
designation LNG or LPG, respectively]. In these last two cases,
due to the enormous pressures and/or negative temperatures
[approximately -60 ºC] at which these substances need to be
transported to stay in the liquid state, the ships have tanks
with special forms, spherical in their generality, since it is about the
the most resilient three-dimensional geometric shape known to man.
 It is in full development the
compressed natural gas ships [CNG], which
they will transport the Natural Gas at almost temperature
environment and at high pressures.
Compared to LNGs, which transport the
Gas at almost ambient pressure and at temperatures
very low, have the advantage of the facilities
landing reception requires simpler and cheaper equipment than
for liquefied gas. The first CNG ship was recently approved,
since its construction will begin soon.

YEARS VIKING, the ultimate lord of the seas

The tanker JAHRE VIKING is the largest movable object in the world.
ever built.

It was built in 1976 at the Sumitomo shipyards, Japan, by

order from a Greek shipowner who refused, when ready, to
receive it due to construction defects, having processed, without
success, the shipyard. The ship SEAWISE GIANT ended up being, then,
sold to Chinese. Tung ChaoYung, the buyer, sent to increase-
I measure in several meters, giving it a height of 30 meters, 485.46
meters in length and, when fully loaded, a
a draft of 24.6 meters, which makes it impossible for them to navigate,
example, in the Channel, capacity to transport
564.761 tons of crude in holds with capacity for
236.710 TAB. Thus, it became the largest mobile object in the world.

It was initially used as a transport ship between the medium-

east and the U.S., but in 1986 it was used as a ship for
storage in the Strait of Hormuz. There, in 1988, it was attacked and
destroyed by fighters from the Iraqi air force during the Iran war
Iraq. Subsequently, in 1989, its wreckage was
plastered for the Kepelde shipyards in Singapore and, in 1990, after
an investment of 60 million dollars, 3,200 tons of steel
and more than 32 kilometers of piping has been put back into operation.
with the name HAPPY GIANT. However, before the repair is
concluded, the Kepel shipyards were sold to the Jørgen group
Years, and then, the ship was renamed once again to YEARS.
VIKING, the name by which he would become more famous.

Finally, in March 2004, it was reconverted into an FSO in the

Dubai Drydocks, renamed Knock Nevise, is now operating.
permanently in the waters of Qatar, Arabian Gulf,
property of Fred Olsen Production, subsidiary of First Olsen
Tankers.
Auxiliary Navies

An auxiliary ship is any ship used to maintain integrity and

ensure the safety of a merchant ship, whether for transportation or
fishing.

Batelões

It is a robust flat-bottomed vessel, towed, with a

endless number of functions. They can serve to transport bulk goods.
solids, such as muds and sands, as support for cranes, excavators,
construction material...

Pilot launches

It is a small vessel whose only function is to carry on board and

bring back to land the pilot of the bar who boarded a given ship. They are
fast and robust vessels. They have a shelter at the stern and their
the bow is flat and has a non-slip floor. Its railing is located on the
interior side, so that the pilot has no obstacles in their entry/exit
of the vessel but have something to hold on to. In the image next to it, you can
See the boat at Ponta do Salmão used by the Pilots of the Lisbon Bar.

Naval dredger

They function to clean mud and sand from the seabed. They are used
especially in ports for quay bottom cleaning actions. They are
equipped with powerful vacuum cleaners that suck the bottom and place the
materials aspirated in a barge that is subsequently unloaded in
high seas.

Lighthouse ships

They are vessels that, anchored in a given location, serve as a warning to

a sandbank, rocks or simply a navigation channel.

Navios FPSO

It is a tanker converted into a facility capable of processing

and storing oil. The acronym derives from Floating Production Storage
Offloading unit. They are located near oil deposits and receive the crude.
from the extraction, they obtain the various derivatives, store them and
subsequently we are unloaded onto smaller tankers.

Navios FSO

It is an installation similar to an FPSO. However, it does not have the

capacity to process oil, serving only for storage.

Navios icebreaker

They are powerful ships whose function is to break ice in the icy seas.
to open a passage corridor for cargo ships. Its bow, to
unlike most cargo ships, has a shape such that
lift the ship onto the ice layer until, under such weight, it
break. As such, these ships do not have a bow bulb. There are
also some merchant ships with icebreaker bows.

However, this method is not always efficient. To address such a

deficiency, the oazipod was developed, an electric propulsion system
similar to a large outboard motor that, when pulled
the ship is grinding the layer of ice in front of it. In this case, the rudder is
unnecessary, both because of the possibility of 360º rotation of the doazipod as
also by the way it works, which would make it impossible for its
operation. It is worth remembering that on a conventional propeller ship and
We are at the stern. An icebreaker ship has it ahead.

Renderers

It is a very sturdy small vessel, equipped with

quite powerful engines, designed to assist in maneuvers in the port
and, in some cases, offshore. It is a vessel that does not have a
great cruising speed, but indeed a great pulling power.
There are several classes and various sizes, some of which are useful.
only for simple dock maneuvers while others serve, beyond
of this, as a supply ship for platforms
oil companies, FPSO,
etc.
This last class of ships, the auxiliary ships, in accordance with the
the nature of your service may encompass a wide range of others
vessels of a more specialized type, therefore dividing into others
more specific classes, as well as being able to combine with each other
with a view to the formation of other classes of more versatile ships.

To conclude this article, I thought it appropriate to quote the architect and enthusiast
navalTelmo Gomes:
Ships are like people. They only die physically. From people, there remains the
soul, said to be immortal and, of some, the story of its life remains, by
exceptional. Of the ships, the soul dies with its crews, but it remains
history, when someone writes it.
stories of sixty ships.