Container, Bulk and Tanker: The Main Types of Cargo Ship

“Cargo ship” covers a surprising range of very different vessels. What a ship carries shapes how it is built, how it is loaded, and which ports it can use. A port’s facilities list — container, solid bulk, liquid bulk, ro-ro, oil terminal and so on — is really a list of which of these ship types it can serve. Here are the main families.

Container ships

Container ships carry standardised steel boxes stacked in cellular holds and on deck. They are the workhorses of manufactured trade — everything from electronics to clothing to packaged food. Capacity is measured in TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units), and the largest vessels now exceed 24,000 TEU. Because they run scheduled liner routes, they need ports that can turn them around quickly with tall ship-to-shore gantry cranes.

Bulk carriers

Dry-bulk carriershaul unpackaged commodities poured loose into their holds — iron ore, coal, grain, bauxite, cement. They are simple, box-holded ships loaded by chutes and conveyors and discharged by grabs or the ship’s own gear. Bulk shipping is where the well-known size classes come from:

• Handysize — the smallest ocean bulkers, able to enter many modest ports.
• Handymax / Supramax — slightly larger, often with their own cranes.
• Panamax — sized to the original Panama Canal locks.
• Capesize — too big for the canals, so they sail around the capes; used on long ore and coal runs.

These classes are defined mainly by a ship’s dimensions and draft, which is why a port’s depth determines which of them it can handle — see what limits ship size at a port.

Tankers

Tankers carry liquids in bulk. Crude-oil and product tankers move petroleum; chemical tankers carry industrial liquids in coated or stainless tanks; and gas carriers (LNG and LPG) move liquefied natural gas and petroleum gas in heavily insulated or pressurised tanks. Tankers load and discharge through pipelines at specialised oil and LNG terminals, often set apart from general cargo berths for safety. Crude tankers have their own size ladder, topping out at the VLCC and ULCC — very large and ultra large crude carriers.

Ro-ro and vehicle carriers

Ro-ro(roll-on/roll-off) ships carry wheeled cargo that drives on and off over ramps — cars, trucks, trailers and heavy machinery. Pure car carriers are the tall, slab-sided ships you see near vehicle terminals. Ro-ro berths need ramps and large paved marshalling yards rather than cranes, which is why “ro-ro” appears as a distinct facility on port pages.

General cargo and breakbulk

General cargo(or breakbulk) ships carry goods that don’t fit neatly into containers or bulk holds — steel coils and plates, timber, project cargo, oversized equipment. They usually carry their own cranes so they can work at ports without heavy shore equipment, which makes them important for smaller and less developed harbors. Closely related are reefer ships, refrigerated for perishable cargo like fruit and fish, though much refrigerated trade now moves in reefer containers.

Reading it on a port page

When you look at a port in this directory, the facilities and depth figures tell you which of these ships it can realistically serve. A deep harbor with container, oil-terminal and ro-ro facilities is a major multipurpose gateway; a shallow river port with only wharves serves small general-cargo vessels and barges. Browse the major world ports and compare for yourself.