A ship is a large, sea-going watercraft, sometimes with multiple decks. A ship usually has sufficient size to carry its own boats, such as lifeboats, dinghies, or runabouts. A rule of thumb saying (though it doesn't always apply) goes: "a boat can fit on a ship, but a ship can't fit on a boat". Often local law and regulation will define the exact size (or the number of masts) which a boat requires to become a ship. (Note that one refers ...

Including:

• Ship - Measuring ships
• Ship - Propulsion
• Ship - General terminology
• Ship - Shipboard terminology
• Ship - Some types of ships and boats
• Ship - Some historical types of ships and boats
• Ship - Quotations

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See also:

Ship, Ship - Measuring ships, Ship - Propulsion, Ship - General terminology, Ship - Shipboard terminology, Ship - Some types of ships and boats, Ship - Some historical types of ships and boats, Ship - Quotations

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Ships may occur collectively as fleets, flotillas or squadrons. Convoys of ships commonly occur. A collection of ships for military purposes may compose a navy or a task force. In the past, people counting or grouping disparate types of ship may refer to the individual vessels as bottoms. Groups of sailing ships could constitute, say, a fleet of 40 sail. Groups of submarines (particularly German U-boats in the 1940s) may hunt in packs ( ...

See also:

Ship, Ship - Measuring ships, Ship - Propulsion, Ship - General terminology, Ship - Shipboard terminology, Ship - Some types of ships and boats, Ship - Some historical types of ships and boats, Ship - Quotations

Read more here: » Ship: Encyclopedia II - Ship - General terminology

The bridge of a ship is an area or room where the ship's navigational controls and other essential equipment related to ship operations are housed and operated. It is so called because it once was a bridge between paddlewheel housings on either side of early steamboats. This new vantage point was deemed so convenient that it was retained after the paddlewheels were superseded. The bridge is especially useful when the ship is to be brought against a dock as it will usually extend out far enough so that the entire side of the shi ...

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A naval ship is a ship (or sometimes boat, depending on classification) used for military purposes, commonly by a navy. Naval ships are differentiated from civilian ships by construction and purpose. Generally, naval ships are damage resilient and armed with various weapon systems, though armament on troop transports is light or non-existent. The term "warship" is often used to identify the subclass of naval ships designed primarily as comb ...

Including:

• Naval ship - Naval ship classification

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A cabin is an enclosed room. Cabin ship - Sailing Ships. In sailing ships, the officers and paying passengers would have an individual or shared cabin. The Commanding officer also known as Captain would have the Grand cabin that normally spanned the stern with large windows, subdivided with movable panels that could be taken down in time of battle so that a small gun could be set up there or the large room used as a surgery. Cabin ship - Modern Warships. In ...

Including:

• Cabin ship - Sailing Ships
• Cabin ship - Modern Warships
• Cabin ship - Passenger Ships

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Cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship that carries goods and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year; they handle the bulk of international trade. Cargo ships are usually specially designed for the task, being equipped with cranes and other mechanisms to load and unload, and come in all sizes. Specialized types of cargo vessels include container ships and bulk carriers. (Technically tankers and supertankers are cargo ships, although they a ...

Including:

• Cargo ship - Sizes of cargo ships

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The famous Catalogue of Ships (νεων κατολογος) is recorded as a part of Book II (verses 494–760, PP Il.2.494) of Homer's Iliad. It lists the names of all the allies who came with the Greeks to lay siege to Troy along with the names of their leaders and the number of ships they brought with them. It is followed by a similar, though shorter, list of the Trojans' allies. The Catalogue provides a rare summary of the geopolitical situation in the region although its reliability is disputed. Some argue that it d ...

Including:

• Catalogue of Ships - The Catalogue
• Catalogue of Ships - Literature

Read more here: » Catalogue of Ships: Encyclopedia - Catalogue of Ships

The Victory ship was a type of cargo ship produced in large numbers by North American shipyards during World War II to replace losses caused by German submarines. One of the first acts of the United States War Shipping Administration when it was formed in February 1942 was to commission the design of the class, initially designated EC2-S-AP1, where EC2 = Emergency Cargo, type 2, S = steam propulsion with one propeller (EC2-S-C1 had been the designation of the Liberty ship design). It was changed to VC2-S-AP1, and the titl ...

Including:

• Victory ship - External link

Read more here: » Victory ship: Encyclopedia - Victory ship

Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size containers, in a technique called containerization. However, cargo that is too big to carry in containers can be handled using so-called flat racks, open top containers and platforms. There are also container ships called "Ro-Ro's" (for roll-on, roll-off) which utilize shore-based ramp systems for loading and unloading. Ro-Ro's are usually associated with shorter trade routes, as they are unable to carry the volume of crane-based container vessels. However, due to their flexibilty and high speed, Ro-R ...

Including:

• Container ship - Largest ships
• Container ship - Future

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The Anatomy of the Ship series of books are comprehensive treatments of the design and construction of individual ships. They have been published by Conway Maritime Press since the 1980s, and republished in the US by the Naval Institute Press. Each volume begins with a general history of the vessel, as preface to a set of detailed scale drawings showing every part of the interior and exterior, from keel to masthead. Black-and-white photographs and engravings, inc ...

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The capital ships of a navy are its "important" warships; the ones with the heaviest firepower and armor. There is usually no formal criterion for the classification, but it is a useful concept when thinking about strategy, for instance to compare relative naval strengths in a theater of operations without having to get bogged down in the details of tonnage and gun diameters. A capital ship is generally a leading or a primary ship in a flee ...

Including:

• Capital ship - Capital ships in fiction and popular culture

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A cruise ship, or less commonly cruise liner or luxury liner, is a passenger ship used for pleasure voyages, where the voyage itself and the amenities of the ship are considered an essential part of the experience. Cruising has become a major part of the tourism industry, with hundreds of thousands of passengers each year as of 2004. The rapid growth of the industry has seen nine or more new-build ships catering to a North American clie ...

Including:

• Cruise ship - Reference

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The Amerigo Vespucci is a world-famous tall ship of the Marina Militare, named after the explorer Amerigo Vespucci. Her home port is Livorno, Italy. As of 2005, she is still in use as a school ship. In 1925, the Regia Marina ordered two school ships to be built following a design by Lieutenant Colonel Francesco Rotundi of the Italian Navy Engineering Corps, inspired by the style of large late 18th century 74-cannon ships of the line. The first of these two ships, the Cristoforo Colombo, was put into service ...

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A Cog is a plank-built, square rigged sailing ship with one mast. Cogs are most associated with seagoing trade in medieval Europe, particularly in the Baltic Sea region. The earliest development seems to have been Celtic, though the cog was first noted in the Dutch city of Muiden in the 10th century. The round ships with oars that were used for Mediterranean sailing were not useful in the rougher Atlantic waters. The maneuverable Viking Longships lacked cargo capacity and could not use their sails against the wind. Attaching a ...

Including:

• Cog ship - Other types of sailing vessel
• Cog ship - External link

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Amphibious assault ships, usually shortened to amphibs, phibs or popularly known as gator freighters, denotes a range of classes of warship employed to land and support ground forces on enemy territory by an amphibious assault. The largest fleet of these types is operated by the United States Navy, including the Tarawa class dating back to the 1970s and the newer and larger Wasp class ships that debuted in 1989. While grossly resembling aircraft carriers, the role of an amphibious assault ship is fun ...

Including:

• Amphibious assault ship - History
• Amphibious assault ship - World War I and interwar period
• Amphibious assault ship - World War II developments
• Amphibious assault ship - Developments in the 1950s 1960s
• Amphibious assault ship - Smaller ships
• Amphibious assault ship - Recent innovations
• Amphibious assault ship - Wasp and Tarawa air complement
• Amphibious assault ship - List of amphibious assault ship types
• Amphibious assault ship - Other navies with amphibious assault ships

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Calypso is the name of a ship that Jacques-Yves Cousteau, one of the most important researchers in oceanography, equipped as a mobile laboratory for field research. Calypso was originally the minesweeper BYMS-26 (British Yard Minesweeper) built for the British Royal Navy by the Ballard Marine Railway Co, Seattle, WA., in the US. As hull number J-826 she was launched on March 21, 1942, and after acceptance and commissioning by the UK was assigned to the Mediterranean. After the war she became a ...

Including:

• Calypso ship - Facts
• Calypso ship - External link

Read more here: » Calypso ship: Encyclopedia - Calypso ship

The tank landing ship (LST, for "Landing Ship, Tank") was created during World War II to support amphibious operations by carrying significant quantities of vehicles, cargo, and troops directly onto an unimproved shore. More than a thousand of these ships were laid down in the United States during WWII. Eighty were built in UK and Canada to a modified design and known as LST (3). Tank landing ship - Introduction. The British evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940 demonstrated to the Admiralty that th ...

Including:

• Tank landing ship - Introduction
• Tank landing ship - Production LST 2
• Tank landing ship - Design and Production LST 3
• Tank landing ship - Service in World War II
• Tank landing ship - Post war developments
• Tank landing ship - Modern developments
• Tank landing ship - Specifications

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A CAM ship was a World War II-era British merchant ship used in convoys as a quick emergency solution to the shortage of escort carriers. "CAM" was an acronym for "Catapult Aircraft Merchantman" and a CAM ship was equipped with a rocket-propelled catapult launching a single Hawker Sea Hurricane, dubbed a "Hurricat" or "Catafighter". The ship was not fitted for landings so the pilot would bail out or ditch in the sea at the end of the flight and the plane would be lost. In 1940-41 35 ships were converted, starting with SS Michael E, and continued ...

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Concrete ships are ships built of concrete instead of more traditional materials, like steel and wood. The most famous of this sort of ship is the small fleet constructed by the US navy at the end of World War I. These ships were made from concrete instead of steel due to the materials shortages experienced during the war. The war ended before more than a few of the ships were built, and those that we ...

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