
However, by grouping cargo into containers, 1,000 to 3,000 cubic feet (28 to 85 m 3) of cargo, or up to about 64,000 pounds (29,000 kg), is moved at once and each container is secured to the ship once in a standardized way.

Before the advent of containerization in the 1950s, break-bulk items were loaded, lashed, unlashed and unloaded from the ship one piece at a time. Break-bulk cargoes, on the other hand, are transported in packages, and are generally manufactured goods. Bulk cargoes, like grain or coal, are transported unpackaged in the hull of the ship, generally in large volume. There are two main types of dry cargo: bulk cargo and break bulk cargo. Open-top containership Rhoneborg at Fremantle Today, about 90% of non- bulk cargo worldwide is transported by container ships, and the largest modern container ships can carry up to 24,000 TEU (e.g., Ever Ace). Typical loads are a mix of 20-foot (1-TEU) and 40-foot (2-TEU) ISO-standard containers, with the latter predominant. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport and now carry most seagoing non-bulk cargo.Ĭontainer ship capacity is measured in twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). Reduced superstructure, containers stacked on deck, bulbous bowĪ container ship (also called boxship or spelled containership) is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. (4) Panamax or post-Panamax vessel (as per breadth of vessel than 32.2m respectively).(3) Feeder or world-wide foreign-going vessel (as per trade).(2) Freighter or pure container (as per passenger carrier-type).

