We are sure you must have heard about container ships, and have surely seen a shipping container once in your life, irrespective of your age, gender, nationality, occupation, or whatever be the case.
In this article, we wish to take you deeper into the world of container ships, and let you know about it’s fascinating history, the types of container ships, it’s working, the design of container ships, and the future of container shipping.
Before going any further, we must first know about what exactly is a container ship:
What Are Container Ships?
As the name indicates, a ship structured specially to hold cargo in a container (containerized cargo) is called a container ship. Transportation of cargo in special containers is known as containerization. Container ships are responsible for the transportation of heavy containers in a large number. Some of the biggest container ships these days can ship approximately 24,000 containers in a single go!
Container ships are used for the transportation of non-bulk cargoes, making it possible to transfer big and gigantic quantities of goods from one place to another. The introduction of container ships have rightly changed the face of global trade forever.
Currently, there are more than 17 million shipping containers in circulation globally, with more than 5 million active shipping containers. Additionally, 90% of the world’s cargo is transported with the help of container ships. Every shipping container which is manufactured and transported around the world is of a standard size of 20 foot or 40 foot respectively, which is why the capacity of container ships is measured in TEUs or FEUs, which stands for ‘Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit’ and ‘Forty-foot Equivalent Unit’ respectively. This standardization exists to facilitate transfer the containers, which are shipped by container ships easily at anywhere around the world with various modes of transport, with trucks and trains being the most common transfer method available.
Source: thehaulagenews
