From container ships to fishing boats, these are the boats that put meals on the table and clothes on our backs.
When we are talking about global trade, it might be easy to picture that big ships crossing the world's greatest oceans are the only ones that truly matter, but that is not the case at all. Not all products come straight into the country in which they will be bought and sold, but have to journey a significant distance after they have been delivered by container ship as well. For this, types of boats and ships like ferries are just as important, as cargo will often be offloaded from the enormous cargo ships and distributed from the ports by truck or train, and ferryboats play an important function in reaching nations or areas that are separated by stretches of water. Individuals like the CEO of DP World P&O and individuals like the CEO of Brittany Ferries will appreciate the role that ferries play in getting goods to everyone.
The modern world is a time of unprecedented production and commerce, and whilst that might may our lives more convenient, it does not constantly have the very best effect on the planet. The over exploitation of natural resources like fishing grounds can have a terrible impact on ecosystems and societies all over the world, which is why small boat types are just as crucial to international trade as huge ones are. Smaller fishing boat types have a much smaller impact on ecological communities than large trawlers, indicating that producing the food that we consume will not result in the collapse of fishing grounds or a huge quantity of animals like dolphins and whales getting captured in the proverbial crossfire.
We are extremely lucky to live in the modern-day world where whatever that we could desire is always at our fingertips (albeit for a price tag). Today we can have every vegetables and fruit in the middle of winter and buy low-cost clothing all year round, and that is down to the network of international trade that connects almost all the countries on this planet together. Although we might mainly travel by train and plane, the goods that keep the world trading and consuming and dressing will tend to travel more often by large types of boat for ocean trips that can last for weeks, lugging a huge quantity of cargo. These container ships are the reason that international trade works, able to transfer things incredibly inexpensively throughout the entire world; a tee shirt can be shipped from Asia to America for the rate of 14 cent, for instance. These ships are typically the size of a skyscraper, holding tens of 1000s of containers, as much as a fifty-mile long freight train. Individuals like the CEO of AP Moller Maersk will understand the value of container ships to worldwide trade.