Merchant Shipping
For more details on this topic, see Shipping lane. For more details on this topic, see Merchant Navy.A nation's shipping fleet (merchant navy, merchant marine, merchant fleet) consists of the ships operated by civilian crews to transport passengers or cargo. Professionals are merchant seaman, merchant sailor, and merchant mariner, or simply seaman, sailor, or mariner. The terms "seaman" or "sailor" may refer to a member of a country's navy.
According to the 2005 CIA World Factbook, the world total number of merchant ships of 1,000 Gross Register Tons or over was 30,936. Statistics for individual countries are available at the List of merchant marine capacity by country.
Read more about this topic: Ship Transport
Famous quotes containing the words merchant and/or shipping:
“I need not tell you of the inadequacy of the American shipping marine on the Pacific Coast.... For this reason it seems to me that there is no subject to which Congress can better devote its attention in the coming session than the passage of a bill which shall encourage our merchant marine in such a way as to establish American lines directly between New York and the eastern ports and South American ports, and both our Pacific Coast ports and the Orient and the Philippines.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“I need not tell you of the inadequacy of the American shipping marine on the Pacific Coast.... For this reason it seems to me that there is no subject to which Congress can better devote its attention in the coming session than the passage of a bill which shall encourage our merchant marine in such a way as to establish American lines directly between New York and the eastern ports and South American ports, and both our Pacific Coast ports and the Orient and the Philippines.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)