Since the end of the age of sail a ship has been any large buoyant watercraft. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size and cargo or passenger capacity. Ships are used on lakes, seas, and rivers for a variety of activities, such as the transport of people or goods, fishing, entertainment, public safety, and warfare. Historically, a "ship" was a vessel with sails rigged in a specific manner.
Ships and boats have developed alongside mankind. In armed conflict and in daily life they have become an integral part of modern commercial and military systems. Fishing boats are used by millions of fishermen throughout the world. Military forces operate vessels for combat and to transport and support forces ashore. Commercial vessels, nearly 35,000 in number, carried 7.4 billion tons of cargo in 2007.
Ships were key in history's great explorations and scientific and technological development. Navigators such as Zheng He spread such inventions as the compass and gunpowder. Ships have been used for such purposes as colonization and the slave trade, and have served scientific, cultural, and humanitarian needs. After the 16th century, new crops that had come from and to the Americas via the European seafarers significantly contributed to the world's population growth. Maritime transport has shaped the world's economy into today's energy-intensive pattern.
Read more about Ship: Nomenclature, Types of Ships, Architecture, Lifecycle, Measuring Ships, Ship Pollution, Buoyancy
Other articles related to "ship, ships":
... under construction to commemorate the earlier ship ... This ship was the fifth US Navy ship to bear the name in honor of the Revolutionary War Battle of Lexington ...
... On 15 June 1992, the ship was donated as a museum and now operates as the USS Lexington Museum on the Bay at 27°48'53 N, 97°23'19, 2914 North Shoreline Blvd, Corpus Christi, Texas ... The ship is carefully maintained, and areas of the ship previously off-limits are becoming open to the public every few years ... The ship's World War II-era gun battery is also being partially restored using guns salvaged from scrapped ships ...
... Two United States Navy ships have borne the name Tarawa, after the Pacific atoll that was the scene of a bloody fight in the Pacific War ... The second Tarawa (LHA-1) is an amphibious assault ship commissioned in 1976 ... This article includes a list of ships with the same or similar names ...
... (T-AGM-6) was a Watertown-class missile range instrumentation ship acquired by the U.S ... Navy in 1960 and converted from her Victory ship cargo configuration to a missile tracking ship, a role she retained for eleven years before being placed out of service in 1971 ...
... Charles was the first "civilian" passenger to board the ship, on her voyage from the shipyard in Clydebank to drydock in Greenock ... of some 500 passengers from the burning French Line ship Antilles ... team which parachuted into the sea to conduct a search of the ship ...
Famous quotes containing the word ship:
“Only one ship is seeking us a black- Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
A huge and birdless silence. In her wake
No waters breed or break.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“But we must build our walls, for what we are
Necessitates it, and we must construct
The ship to navigate behind them, there.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)