CHAPTER-1
DEFINITIONS OF LINER TRADES OVERVIEW
Introduction: This Course is intended to offer a good understanding of the nature of worldwide finer
shipping trade including its structure and organization as well as the methods of operation, technology
and terminology used. Liner shipping changed dramatically in the last quarter of the 20 th Century: that
period of twenty five years saw the virtual disappearance of cargo handling systems that had remained
essentially unchanged since the dawn of shipping and their replacement by unitized and in particular
containerized cargo movement. By the beginning of this century the changeover had completed with
Containerisation, supported in some areas by Roll-on/Roll-off services accounting for almost all
international movement of manufactured and semi manufactured goods.
Each lesson in this course deals with an allied group of topics from the Institute of Chartered
Shipbrokers Liner Trades syllabus. Within each lesson are self-assessment questions to enable you to
test the knowledge gained. At the end of each lesson there is an assignment which may require the
application of knowledge from previous sections as well as the topics covered in the lesson just
completed. A mock examination is provided at the end of the course and students are strongly
recommended to attempt this under examination conditions especially as practice in handwriting an
exam paper. Where examples are used in the course these will refer to the movement of containerized
general cargo unless the context states otherwise.
History of Liners:
Knowledge of shipping history is not required for the course. However it is a useful background and it
aids the understanding of current practice to have some idea of how shipping developed. Ever since
man designed craft to float on the seas, goods have been carried between ports worldwide. Arab dhows
have for centuries traded between the Arabian Gulf and East Africa, using the prevailing trade winds to
blow them either southwest or northeast across the Indian Ocean. Sailing ships carried goods
worldwide; often the Captain was the owner of the ship and would seek out his own cargo whereas in
other cases a merchant would own the ship and its cargo and appoint a master and crew to operate
vessel for him. Often merchant traders would stake their entire fortunes on the successful completion of
voyages. In the latter days of sail, clipper ships such as Cutty Sark would carry cargo for shippers
between the United Kingdom and China or Australia. However even these sophisticated and fast ships
were subject to the winds and not the calendar Scheduled trading began with the advent of steam
power during the 1820s when for the first time ships became independent of the wind and were much
less vulnerable to adverse weather. Timetabling of services began to be possible as steam power
became more reliable and vessels larger so that by the 1800s regular scheduled services were a feature
of many main trade routes. Today, seaborne trade is carried out in many forms of ship, most of which
are not interchangeable for example ships carrying liquid cargoes, grain and ores, Container ships can
, carry all manner of goods in enclosed or open containers, Ro-Ro ships and ferries carry cargo on trucks
or other wheeled vehicles Specialised heavy lift ships carry larger indivisible items. Some 80% of
Seaborne dry cargo trade is bulk cargo that is homogenous cargo consisting of iron and manganese ores,
coal, grain, forest products, bauxit and phosphates. In this case a ship carries only one commodity at a
time, these ships are called "bulk carriers. They vary if size from a few hundred tonnes cargo carrying to
a maximum of over 300,000 tonnes. The other large group of vessels is Tankers' designed to carry liquid
cargoes (or gas) and these are specialised in design to meet the demands of the types of cargo they will
carry. The rest of the world trade consists of every conceivable type of manufactured or part
manufactured goods as well as some smaller quantities of raw materials and is moved by liner trade
ships operating on fixed routes with a fixed schedule. These goods are mainly carried by container ships
which offer very reliable, tightly scheduled and frequent services with a very high level of cargo safety.
Liner trades and tramp trades:
The dry bulk and liquid cargoes referred to above are generally referred to as the Tramp Trades' and the
vessels used as Tramp Ships. This does not imply in any way that the ships are not well maintained or in
any other way sub-standard, on the contrary some of the most modern and sophisticated vessels afloat
operate in tramp trades. What it does mean is that the ship tramps or goes from place to place
wherever the cargo opportunities direct without any forward geographical planned route. It may be
useful to think of the tramp vessel as a taxi which is hired to go from one point to another, having
completed that journey it must find its next employment. The Liner Trade services on the other operate
between a fixed and predetermined number of ports at each end of the route and call at each port in
accordance with a 'timetable. This may be likened to the bus service on a route with fixed stopping
places, operating to a timetable and running whether it is full of passengers or empty. Liner trades may
impose special requirements on the operator; for example a high demand for refrigerated (reefer) cargo
on one leg of the voyage or a substantial movement of wheeled vehicles. Such factors as well as the
limitations of the facilities at the ports of call will govern the type of ship required.
Containerisation: Cargo handling methods remained unchanged for centuries; barrels: bales, cases and
bundles of goods were handled individually. Cargo was carried or hand trucked from quayside to ship's
hold and stowed manually in place in the hold with the reverse on discharge. Even the use of cranes
with devices such as cargo nets for lifting several items at a time made little difference to the need for a
large manual labour force. In the late 1950s and early 1960s attempts were made to unitise' cargo on
pallets or strapped into larger bundles so as to speed up cargo handling and this with the development
of fork trucks created some saving of effort but these improved conventional handling systems were still
slow and highly labour intensive. The Second World War (1939-1946) had boosted improvements in ship
design and technology so that larger, faster and more efficient ships were available, although at higher
cost. At the same time wage levels and living standards in the developed countries were increasing
dramatically, Cargo liners were spending some three to four weeks in port at each end of a voyage,
discharging and loading cargo. This was most unsatisfactory, as it delayed the movement of the cargo
thus affecting a shipper's financial transactions, but more importantly caused a severe loss of income to
the ship owner, who earns only when a ship is moving. The solution was the introduction of containers
in the 1960s which are now used for nearly all general cargo movements on most liner trades. The first
major trade routes to be containerized outside USA coastal areas were the trades between Europe and
Australia, and Europe and the Far East in the late 1960s. Within a decade all the main east-west routes
had been containerized and within twenty years all main liner routes had followed.
DEFINITIONS OF LINER TRADES OVERVIEW
Introduction: This Course is intended to offer a good understanding of the nature of worldwide finer
shipping trade including its structure and organization as well as the methods of operation, technology
and terminology used. Liner shipping changed dramatically in the last quarter of the 20 th Century: that
period of twenty five years saw the virtual disappearance of cargo handling systems that had remained
essentially unchanged since the dawn of shipping and their replacement by unitized and in particular
containerized cargo movement. By the beginning of this century the changeover had completed with
Containerisation, supported in some areas by Roll-on/Roll-off services accounting for almost all
international movement of manufactured and semi manufactured goods.
Each lesson in this course deals with an allied group of topics from the Institute of Chartered
Shipbrokers Liner Trades syllabus. Within each lesson are self-assessment questions to enable you to
test the knowledge gained. At the end of each lesson there is an assignment which may require the
application of knowledge from previous sections as well as the topics covered in the lesson just
completed. A mock examination is provided at the end of the course and students are strongly
recommended to attempt this under examination conditions especially as practice in handwriting an
exam paper. Where examples are used in the course these will refer to the movement of containerized
general cargo unless the context states otherwise.
History of Liners:
Knowledge of shipping history is not required for the course. However it is a useful background and it
aids the understanding of current practice to have some idea of how shipping developed. Ever since
man designed craft to float on the seas, goods have been carried between ports worldwide. Arab dhows
have for centuries traded between the Arabian Gulf and East Africa, using the prevailing trade winds to
blow them either southwest or northeast across the Indian Ocean. Sailing ships carried goods
worldwide; often the Captain was the owner of the ship and would seek out his own cargo whereas in
other cases a merchant would own the ship and its cargo and appoint a master and crew to operate
vessel for him. Often merchant traders would stake their entire fortunes on the successful completion of
voyages. In the latter days of sail, clipper ships such as Cutty Sark would carry cargo for shippers
between the United Kingdom and China or Australia. However even these sophisticated and fast ships
were subject to the winds and not the calendar Scheduled trading began with the advent of steam
power during the 1820s when for the first time ships became independent of the wind and were much
less vulnerable to adverse weather. Timetabling of services began to be possible as steam power
became more reliable and vessels larger so that by the 1800s regular scheduled services were a feature
of many main trade routes. Today, seaborne trade is carried out in many forms of ship, most of which
are not interchangeable for example ships carrying liquid cargoes, grain and ores, Container ships can
, carry all manner of goods in enclosed or open containers, Ro-Ro ships and ferries carry cargo on trucks
or other wheeled vehicles Specialised heavy lift ships carry larger indivisible items. Some 80% of
Seaborne dry cargo trade is bulk cargo that is homogenous cargo consisting of iron and manganese ores,
coal, grain, forest products, bauxit and phosphates. In this case a ship carries only one commodity at a
time, these ships are called "bulk carriers. They vary if size from a few hundred tonnes cargo carrying to
a maximum of over 300,000 tonnes. The other large group of vessels is Tankers' designed to carry liquid
cargoes (or gas) and these are specialised in design to meet the demands of the types of cargo they will
carry. The rest of the world trade consists of every conceivable type of manufactured or part
manufactured goods as well as some smaller quantities of raw materials and is moved by liner trade
ships operating on fixed routes with a fixed schedule. These goods are mainly carried by container ships
which offer very reliable, tightly scheduled and frequent services with a very high level of cargo safety.
Liner trades and tramp trades:
The dry bulk and liquid cargoes referred to above are generally referred to as the Tramp Trades' and the
vessels used as Tramp Ships. This does not imply in any way that the ships are not well maintained or in
any other way sub-standard, on the contrary some of the most modern and sophisticated vessels afloat
operate in tramp trades. What it does mean is that the ship tramps or goes from place to place
wherever the cargo opportunities direct without any forward geographical planned route. It may be
useful to think of the tramp vessel as a taxi which is hired to go from one point to another, having
completed that journey it must find its next employment. The Liner Trade services on the other operate
between a fixed and predetermined number of ports at each end of the route and call at each port in
accordance with a 'timetable. This may be likened to the bus service on a route with fixed stopping
places, operating to a timetable and running whether it is full of passengers or empty. Liner trades may
impose special requirements on the operator; for example a high demand for refrigerated (reefer) cargo
on one leg of the voyage or a substantial movement of wheeled vehicles. Such factors as well as the
limitations of the facilities at the ports of call will govern the type of ship required.
Containerisation: Cargo handling methods remained unchanged for centuries; barrels: bales, cases and
bundles of goods were handled individually. Cargo was carried or hand trucked from quayside to ship's
hold and stowed manually in place in the hold with the reverse on discharge. Even the use of cranes
with devices such as cargo nets for lifting several items at a time made little difference to the need for a
large manual labour force. In the late 1950s and early 1960s attempts were made to unitise' cargo on
pallets or strapped into larger bundles so as to speed up cargo handling and this with the development
of fork trucks created some saving of effort but these improved conventional handling systems were still
slow and highly labour intensive. The Second World War (1939-1946) had boosted improvements in ship
design and technology so that larger, faster and more efficient ships were available, although at higher
cost. At the same time wage levels and living standards in the developed countries were increasing
dramatically, Cargo liners were spending some three to four weeks in port at each end of a voyage,
discharging and loading cargo. This was most unsatisfactory, as it delayed the movement of the cargo
thus affecting a shipper's financial transactions, but more importantly caused a severe loss of income to
the ship owner, who earns only when a ship is moving. The solution was the introduction of containers
in the 1960s which are now used for nearly all general cargo movements on most liner trades. The first
major trade routes to be containerized outside USA coastal areas were the trades between Europe and
Australia, and Europe and the Far East in the late 1960s. Within a decade all the main east-west routes
had been containerized and within twenty years all main liner routes had followed.
