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The LNG carrier (Liquefied Natural Gas) and it’s cousin the LPG carrier (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) are products of the late twentieth century. LNG and LPG are the preferred fuel types of certain countries for their industrial power needs. Japan is one such country, and so LNG needs to be transported to Japan, but is not the easiest of cargoes to be transported. In its natural state, LNG is a gas, so to transport it, it needs to be either pressurized into a liquefied form, or kept as a liquid by reducing the temperature (simple application of Boyle’s Law in physics!).
The shape of the LNG Carrier is quite unmistakable, with the shape of the Moss tanks (which are like enormous spherical thermos flasks!) visible along the deck, which has led to the nickname of “Dinosaur Eggs Carriers”. An alternative design is known as the “membrane” type, which allows for a more standard shape of vessel without the “eggs”.

Obviously, the carriage of an explosive gas – kept at below freezing temperatures as an unstable liquid presents a very dangerous cargo, yet it is for this very fact, that LNG Carriers have about the best safety record of all maritime vessels. Only the best officers and crews are employed on these vessels, and the vessels themselves are maintained meticulously, and renewed frequently. There have been accidents involving LNG / LPG carriers, but where such events have occurred, the crews or salvors have so far, successfully managed to vent off the cargo into the atmosphere, thus rendering the lethal cargo harmless.

The car carrier or more correctly the P.C.C. (Pure Car carrier) or P.C./T.C. (Pure car/truck carrier), could never be described as a beauty of the seas, yet in it’s rectangular design, is purpose built to carry large numbers of cars.

Manufacturers of cars, mainly in Japan and Europe, use these vessels to ship large quantities of their products around the world. Every Japanese, Korean, or European car you see on your roads, may have been brought across on one of these car carrier vessels.

The Containership or “Box ship” is the great success story of the last 40 years. General cargo was historically carried in dry cargo vessels, without any particular specialization. Cargo loading and unloading was always a slow, laborious task, due to the varying shapes, sizes, weights and fragility of the numerous cargoes being carried on any one vessel. The idea of standardizing the carrying box, or container at 20 feet long was a breakthrough that allowed for vessels to be designed to carry these standard sized boxes, and for dockside equipment also to be designed to lift , stack and store these specific shapes.

In 1937, a New Jersey truck driver named Malcolm McLean, sitting in his truck at the New Jersey Docks suddenly had a novel idea. Instead of large numbers of stevedores having to manually load cargo, why not create a standard shaped box into which goods can be handled in a standard way ? His idea took 20 years before the first container transit was undertaken (with his own money, because no ship owners would listen to his idea) In 1969 Malcolm McLean retired as a multi-millionaire !!!

So, from a “back of the fag-packet” idea was born the container ship. Initially, these were small vessels of up to 10,000 DWT, carrying no more than a few hundred TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Units), but have grown in size as the success and economies of these vessels have become more obvious. Today’s container ships are being built to take 8,000 T.E.U., with plans to build 10 – 12,000 TEU ships.

As well as the Twenty-foot container, many goods need larger boxes, so there is a larger standard-sized container, the FEU (Forty Foot Equivalent Unit). Onboard a modern containership, the complex method of loading the TEU and FEU in an order that will facilitate offloading at the other end is now largely computerized. As if specially designed to give Chief Officers a headache, modern development is the “high box”, a standard container in length and width, but 9′ 6″ high (instead of the standard 8′). Refrigerated containers (“reefer containers”) have become very popular for the carriage of meat and fruit. Due to their flexibility of usage, these reefer containers are gradually destroying the need for specialized “reefer” ships, whose numbers are declining due to their business being taken over by these reefer containers.
These vessels are built for speed and can reach upwards of 28 knots, moving cargoes around the world. Globally storing and returning empty boxes has become an industry in itself!

Through-transport or inter-modal transport, means that these containers can be offloaded from a ship, and rapidly loaded onto trains or onto container lorries for onward transport to the place of delivery.

Shaped quite unlike any other cargo vessels, some heavy lift vessels can be ballasted down, so that cargoes (often on pontoons) can be floated on. The vessel is then raised, lifting the cargo, (now resting on the deck of the heavy lift vessel), out of the water, ready for ocean transit, often to the other side of the world. These specialist vessel are often used in the oil industry for the carriage of jack up rigs. Other unusual cargoes can include power plants, desalination units, generators and yachts.

The Ro-Ro, or more fully the Roll on – roll off vessel, comes in a number of shapes and sizes, but generally in two types; the passenger ro-ro and the Cargo ro-ro.
Passenger ro-ros have become common sights wherever people want to travel over water with their vehicles. It is probably the only type of cargo vessel that most people have travelled on. Usually a rear door (but sometimes a bow door) allows for vehicles to be driven on and off, stored on the car deck below the passenger accommodation areas.
The cargo ro-ro is less “plush” than the passenger type, as these vessels are designed for the carriage of commercial vehicles where luxurious passenger accommodation is not a primary consideration. Considerable concerns have been expressed over the bow-door type of ro-ro design. The HERALD OF FREE ENTERPRISE was one such vessel, where a practice of sailing before the bow door was fully closed had been allowed to develop. Tragically, on leaving Zeebrugge, the folly of this practice led to the disaster that claimed nearly 200 lives. If water is allowed to enter the car deck, the stability of the whole vessel can be rapidly affected. It is estimated that it only needs one centimeter of water over the whole car deck, for the vessel to become so unstable that it can overturn. The ESTONIA was another such vessel where, in a storm, the shield over the bow door was ripped off. Once water penetrated the car deck the vessel began to turn over and sink. In the bitter waters of the Baltic Sea, the loss of life was terrible. Another earlier accident was that of the SEASPEED DORA which led many to call these vessels “ro-ro-ro” ships – Roll on, roll off….roll over!!!