Ship transport

Ship transport is watercraft carrying people (passengers) or goods (cargo).

Sea transport has been the largest carrier of freight throughout recorded history. Although the importance of sea travel for passengers has decreased due to aviation, it is effective for short trips and pleasure cruises. Transport by water is cheaper than transport by air, despite fluctuating exchange rates and CAF charges to account for such.

Ship transport can be over any distance by boat, ship, sailboat or barge, over oceans and lakes, through canals or along rivers. Shipping may be for commerce, recreation or the military purpose. Virtually any material can be moved by water; however, water transport becomes impractical when material delivery is highly time-critical.

Containerization revolutionized ship transport starting in the 1970s. "General cargo" includes goods packaged in boxes, cases, pallets, and barrels. When a cargo is carried in more than one mode, it is intermodal or co-modal.

Merchant shipping

2013

2013 (MMXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (dominical letter F) of the Gregorian calendar, the 2013th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 13th year of the 3rd millennium, the 13th year of the 21st century, and the 4th year of the 2010s decade.

2013 was designated as:

Events

January

February

Coast

A coastline or a seashore is the area where land meets the sea or ocean, or a line that forms the boundary between the land and the ocean or a lake. A precise line that can be called a coastline cannot be determined due to the Coastline paradox.

The term coastal zone is a region where interaction of the sea and land processes occurs. Both the terms coast and coastal are often used to describe a geographic location or region; for example, New Zealand's West Coast, or the East and West Coasts of the United States. Edinburgh for example is a city on the coast of Scotland.

A pelagic coast refers to a coast which fronts the open ocean, as opposed to a more sheltered coast in a gulf or Headlands and bays/bay. A shore, on the other hand, can refer to parts of the land which adjoin any large body of water, including oceans (sea shore) and lakes (lake shore). Similarly, the somewhat related term "[Stream bed/bank]" refers to the land alongside or sloping down to a river (riverbank) or to a body of water smaller than a lake. "Bank" is also used in some parts of the world to refer to an artificial ridge of earth intended to retain the water of a river or pond; in other places this may be called a levee.

Freight transport

Freight transport is the physical process of transporting commodities and merchandise goods and cargo. The term shipping originally referred to transport by sea, but is extended in American English to refer to transport by land or air (International English: "carriage") as well. "Logistics", a term borrowed from the military environment, is also fashionably used in the same sense.

Modes of shipment

Ground

Land or "ground" shipping can be by train or by truck (International English: lorry). In air and sea shipments, ground transport is required to take the cargo from its place of origin to the airport or seaport and then to its destination because it is not always possible to establish a production facility near ports due to limited coastlines of countries. Ground transport is typically more affordable than air, but more expensive than sea especially in developing countries like India, where inland infrastructure is not efficient.

Shipment of cargo by trucks, directly from the shipper's place to the destination, is known as a door to door shipment and more formally as multimodal transport. Trucks and trains make deliveries to sea and air ports where cargo is moved in bulk.

River Thames

The River Thames (ⁱ/tɛmz/ TEMZ) is a river that flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom, after the River Severn. While it is best known for flowing through London, the river also flows alongside other towns and cities, including Oxford, Reading, Henley-on-Thames and Windsor.

The river gives its name to three informal areas: the Thames Valley, a region of England around the river between Oxford and West London; the Thames Gateway; and the greatly overlapping Thames Estuary around the tidal Thames to the east of London and including the waterway itself. Thames Valley Police is a formal body that takes its name from the river, covering three counties.

In an alternative name, derived from its long tidal reach up to Teddington Lock in south west London, the lower reaches of the river are called the Tideway. The section of the river running through Oxford is traditionally called the Isis.

The administrative powers of the Thames Conservancy have been taken on with modifications by the Environment Agency and, in respect of the Tideway part of the river, such powers are split between the agency and the Port of London Authority.