Operations Vocabulary
Shipping Terms
Complete maritime shipping vocabulary reference with searchable terms used in operations, compliance, and port logistics.
Showing 25 of 392 terms
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| BROKERAGE | Percentage of freight payable to broker (by owners in c/p's) or applicable to sale or purchase. |
| BULK | Cargo shipped in loose condition and of a homogeneous nature.Cargoes that are shipped unpackaged either dry, such as grain and ore, or liquid, such as petroleum products. Bulk service generally is not provided on a regularly scheduled basis, but rather as needed, on specialized ships, transporting a specific commodity. |
| BULK CARRIER | Ship specifically designed to transport vast amounts of cargoes such as sugar, grain, wine, ore, chemicals, liquefied natural gas; coal and oil. See also LNG Carrier, Tanker, OBO Ship. |
| BULKHEAD | A name given to any vertical partition which separates different compartments or spaces from one another. |
| BUNKERS | Fuel consumed by the engines of a ship; compartments or tanks in a ship for fuel storage. |
| BUOY | A floating object employed as an aid to mariners to mark the navigable limits of channels, their fairways, sunken dangers, isolated rocks, telegraph cables, and the like; floating devices fixed in place at sea, lake or river as reference points for navigation or for other purposes. |
| C & F | Cost and Freight |
| C & I | Cost and Insurance |
| C.I.F. | Cost, Insurance and Freight: Export term in which the price quoted by the exporter includes the costs of ocean transportation to the port of destination and insurance coverage. |
| C/P | Charter Party |
| CABLE SHIP | A specially constructed ship for the laying and repairing of telegraph and telephone cables across channels, seas, lakes, and oceans. |
| CABOTAGE | The carriage of goods or passengers for remuneration taken on at one point and discharged at another point within the territory of the same country. |
| CABOTAGE POLICIES | Reservation of a country's coastal (domestic) shipping for its own flag vessels. |
| CAORF | Computer-Assisted Operations Research Facility: A MarAd R&D facility located at U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point,New York. |
| CAPESIZE | A vessel too large to pass through the Suez Canal. |
| CARGO HANDLING | The act of loading and discharging a cargo ship. |
| CARGO PLAN | A plan giving the quantities and description of the various grades carried in the ship's cargo tanks, after the loading is completed. |
| CARGO PREFERENCE | Reserving a portion of a nation's imports and exports to national-flag vessels. |
| CARGO RETENTION CLAUSES | Clauses introduced by charterers based on shortage of delivered cargo because of increased oil prices. |
| CARRIAGE OF GOODS BY SEA ACT | A law enacted in 1936 covering the transportation of merchandise by sea to or from ports of the United States and in foreign trades. |
| CARRIERS | Owners or operators of vessels providing transportation to shippers. The term is also used to refer to the vessels. |
| CATAMARAN | A double or treble-hulled vessel constructed in wood, aluminum or reinforced glass fibre and is also composed of two or three hulls diagonally joined together by various methods. Normally no ballast is needed to counteract the center buoyancy since it enjoys good stability at sea. |
| CATUG | Short for Catamaran Tug. A rigid catamaran tug connected to a barge. When joined together, they form and look like a single hull of sa ship; oceangoing integrated tug-barge vessels. |
| CATWALK | A raised bridge running fore and aft from the midship, and also called 'walkway'. It affords safe passage over the pipelines and other deck obstructions. |
| CBF | Cubic feet |