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Roll-on/roll-off

Roll-on/roll-off (RORO or ro-ro) ships are cargo ships designed to carry wheeled cargo, such as cars, motorcycles, trucks, semi-trailer trucks, buses, trailers, and railroad cars, that are driven on and off the ship on their own wheels or using a platform vehicle, such as a self-propelled modular transporter. This is in contrast to lift-on/lift-off (LoLo) vessels, which use a crane to load and unload cargo.

RORO vessels have either built-in or shore-based ramps or ferry slips that allow the cargo to be efficiently rolled on and off the vessel when in port. While smaller ferries that operate across rivers and other short distances often have built-in ramps, the term RORO is generally reserved for large oceangoing vessels. The ramps and doors may be located in the stern, bow, or sides, or any combination thereof.

Description

Types of RORO vessels include ferries, cruiseferries, cargo ships, barges, and RoRo service for air deliveries. New automobiles that are transported by ship are often moved on a large type of RORO called a pure car carrier (PCC) or pure car/truck carrier (PCTC).

Elsewhere in the shipping industry, cargo is normally measured by the tonne, but RORO cargo is typically measured in lanes in metres (LIMs). This is calculated by multiplying the cargo length in metres by the number of decks and by its width in lanes (lane width differs from vessel to vessel, and there are several industry standards). On PCCs, cargo capacity is often measured in RT or RT43 units (based on a 1966 Toyota Corona, the first mass-produced car to be shipped in specialised car-carriers and used as the basis of RORO vessel size. 1 RT is approximately 4m of lane space required to store a 1.5m wide Toyota Corona) or in car-equivalent units (CEU).

The largest RORO passenger ferry is MS Color Magic, a 75,100 GT cruise ferry that entered service in September 2007 for Color Line. Built in Finland by Aker Finnyards, it is 223.70 m (733 ft 11 in) long and 35 m (114 ft 10 in) wide, and can carry 550 cars, or 1270 lane meters of cargo.[1]

The RORO passenger ferry with the greatest car-carrying capacity is Ulysses (named after a novel by James Joyce), owned by Irish Ferries. Ulysses entered service on 25 March 2001 and operates between Dublin and Holyhead. The 50,938 GT ship is 209.02 m (685 ft 9 in) long and 31.84 m (104 ft 6 in) wide, and can carry 1342 cars/4101 lane meters of cargo.[2]

Car carriers

The first cargo ships specially fitted for the transport of large quantities of cars came into service in the early 1960s. These ships still had their own loading gear and so-called hanging decks inside. They were, for example, chartered by the German Volkswagen AG to transport vehicles to the U.S. and Canada. During the 1970s, the market for exporting and importing cars has increased dramatically and the number and type of ROROs has increased also.

In 1970 Japan's K Line built the Toyota Maru No. 10, Japan's first pure car carrier, and in 1973 built the European Highway, the largest pure car carrier (PCC) at that time, which carried 4,200 automobiles. Today's pure car carriers and their close cousins, the pure car/truck carrier (PCTC), are distinctive ships with a box-like superstructure running the entire length and breadth of the hull, fully enclosing the cargo. They typically have a stern ramp and a side ramp for dual loading of thousands of vehicles (such as cars, trucks, heavy machineries, tracked units, Mafi roll trailers, and loose statics), and extensive automatic fire control systems.

The PCTC has liftable decks to increase vertical clearance, as well as heavier decks for "high-and-heavy" cargo. A 6,500-unit car ship, with 12 decks, can have three decks which can take cargo up to 150 short tons (136 t; 134 long tons) with liftable panels to increase clearance from 1.7 to 6.7 m (5 ft 7 in to 22 ft 0 in) on some decks. Lifting decks to accommodate higher cargo reduces the total capacity.

These vessels can achieve a cruising speed of 16 knots (18 mph; 30 km/h) at eco-speed, while at full speed can achieve more than 19 knots (22 mph; 35 km/h).

With the building of Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics's 8,000 car-equivalent unit (CEU) car carrier Faust out of Stockholm in June 2007, car carriers entered a new era of the large car and truck carrier (LCTC).[3] Currently, the largest are Höegh Autoliners, six Horizon class vessels with capacity of 8,500 CEU each.

The car carrier Auriga Leader, belonging to Nippon Yusen Kaisha, built in 2008 with a capacity of 6,200 cars, is the world's first partially solar powered ship.[4]

Seaworthiness

The seagoing RORO car ferry, with large external doors close to the waterline and open vehicle decks with few internal bulkheads, has a reputation for being a high-risk design, to the point where the acronym is sometimes derisively expanded to "roll on/roll over".[5] An improperly secured loading door can cause a ship to take on water and sink, as happened in 1987 with MS Herald of Free Enterprise. Water sloshing on the vehicle deck can set up a free surface effect, making the ship unstable and causing it to capsize. Free surface water on the vehicle deck was determined by the court of inquiry to be the immediate cause of the 1968 capsize of the TEV Wahine in New Zealand.[6] It also contributed to the wreck of MS Estonia.

Despite these inherent risks, the very high freeboard raises the seaworthiness of these vessels. For example, the car carrier MV Cougar Ace listed 60 degrees to its port side in 2006, but did not sink, since its high enclosed sides prevented water from entering.

In late January 2016 MV Modern Express was listing off France after cargo shifted on the ship. Salvage crews secured the vessel and it was hauled into the port of Bilbao, Spain.[7]

Some RORO ship casualties are mentioned here.

RORO variations

 
ConRO carrying trailers and containers
 
USNS Shughart, a non-combatant RORO vessel, unloading Stryker armored vehicles
RORO variations
Variation Remarks
ConRO The ConRo (or RoCon) vessel is a hybrid of a RORO and a container ship. This type of vessel has a below-deck area used for vehicle storage while stacking containerized freight on the top decks. ConRo ships, such as the G4 class of the Atlantic Container Line, can carry a combination of containers, heavy equipment, oversized cargo, and automobiles. Separate internal ramp systems within the vessel segregate automobiles from other vehicles, Mafi roll trailers, and break-bulk cargo.
LMSR Large, Medium-Speed Roll-on/Roll-off (LMSR) refers to several classes of Military Sealift Command (MSC) roll-on/roll-off type cargo ships. Some are purpose-built to carry military cargo, while others are converted.
RoLo A RoLo (roll-on/lift-off) vessel is another hybrid vessel type, with ramps serving vehicle decks but with other cargo decks only accessible when the tides change or by the use of a crane.
ROPAX The acronym ROPAX (roll-on/roll-off passenger) describes a RORO vessel built for freight vehicle transport along with passenger accommodation. Technically this encompasses all ferries with both a roll-on/roll-off car deck and passenger-carrying capacities, but in practice, ships with facilities for more than 500 passengers are often referred to as cruiseferries.[citation needed]

History

At first, wheeled vehicles carried as cargo on oceangoing ships were treated like any other cargo. Automobiles had their fuel tanks emptied and their batteries disconnected before being hoisted into the ship's hold, where they were chocked and secured. This process was tedious and difficult, and vehicles were subject to damage and could not be used for routine travel.

An early roll-on/roll-off service was a train ferry, started in 1833 by the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway, which operated a wagon ferry on the Forth and Clyde Canal in Scotland.[8][page needed]

Invention

 
Floating Railway, opened in 1850 as the first roll-on roll-off train ferry in the world

The first modern train ferry was Leviathan, built in 1849. The Edinburgh, Leith and Newhaven Railway was formed in 1842 and the company wished to extend the East Coast Main Line further north to Dundee and Aberdeen. As bridge technology was not yet capable enough to provide adequate support for the crossing over the Firth of Forth, which was roughly five miles across, a different solution had to be found, primarily for the transport of goods, where efficiency was key.

The company hired the up-and-coming civil engineer Thomas Bouch who argued for a train ferry with a roll-on/roll-off mechanism to maximise the efficiency of the system. Ferries were to be custom-built, with railway lines and matching harbour facilities at both ends to allow the rolling stock to easily drive on and off.[9] To compensate for the changing tides, adjustable ramps were positioned at the harbours and the gantry structure height was varied by moving it along the slipway. The wagons were loaded on and off with the use of stationary steam engines.[9][8][page needed]

 
Bouch's ferry design. Note the adjustable ramp.

Although others had had similar ideas, Bouch was the first to put them into effect, and did so with an attention to detail (such as design of the ferry slip) which led a subsequent President of the Institution of Civil Engineers[10] to settle any dispute over priority of invention with the observation that "there was little merit in a simple conception of this kind, compared with a work practically carried out in all its details, and brought to perfection."[11]

The company was persuaded to install this train ferry service for the transportation of goods wagons across the Firth of Forth from Burntisland in Fife to Granton. The ferry itself was built by Thomas Grainger, a partner of the firm Grainger and Miller.[12]

The service commenced on 3 February 1850.[13] It was called "The Floating Railway"[14] and intended as a temporary measure until the railway could build a bridge, but this was not opened until 1890, its construction delayed in part by repercussions from the catastrophic failure of Thomas Bouch's Tay Rail Bridge.[15]

Expansion

Train-ferry services were used extensively during World War I. From 10 February 1918, high volumes of railway rolling stock, artillery and supplies for the Front were shipped to France from the "secret port" of Richborough, near Sandwich on the South Coast of England.

This involved three train-ferries to be built, each with four sets of railway line on the main deck to allow for up to 54 railway wagons to be shunted directly on and off the ferry. These train-ferries could also be used to transport motor vehicles along with railway rolling stock. Later that month a second train-ferry was established from the Port of Southampton on the South East Coast. In the first month of operations at Richborough, 5,000 tons were transported across the Channel, by the end of 1918 it was nearly 261,000 tons.[16]

There were many advantages of the use of train-ferries over conventional shipping in World War I. It was much easier to move the large, heavy artillery and tanks that this kind of modern warfare required using train-ferries as opposed to repeated loading and unloading of cargo. By manufacturers loading tanks, guns and other heavy items for shipping to the front directly on to railway wagons, which could be shunted on to a train-ferry in England and then shunted directly on to the French Railway Network, with direct connections to the Front Lines, many man hours of unnecessary labour were avoided.

An analysis done at the time found that to transport 1,000 tons of war material from the point of manufacture to the front by conventional means involved the use of 1,500 labourers, whereas when using train-ferries that number decreased to around 100 labourers. This was of utmost importance, as by 1918, the British Railway companies were experiencing a severe shortage of labour with hundreds of thousands of skilled and unskilled labourers away fighting at the front. The increase of heavy traffic because of the war effort meant that economies and efficiency in transport had to be made wherever possible.[16]

After the signing of the Armistice on 11 November 1918, train ferries were used extensively for the return of material from the Front. Indeed, according to war office statistics, a greater tonnage of material was transported by train ferry from Richborough in 1919 than in 1918. As the train ferries had space for motor transport as well as railway rolling stock, thousands of lorries, motor cars and "B Type" buses used these ferries to return to England.

The landing ship, tank

 
A Canadian LST off-loads an M4 Sherman during the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943.

During World War II, landing ships were the first purpose-built seagoing ships enabling road vehicles to roll directly on and off. The British evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940 demonstrated to the Admiralty that the Allies needed relatively large, ocean-going ships capable of shore-to-shore delivery of tanks and other vehicles in amphibious assaults upon the continent of Europe. As an interim measure, three 4000 to 4800 GRT tankers, built to pass over the restrictive bars of Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela, were selected for conversion because of their shallow draft. Bow doors and ramps were added to these ships, which became the first tank landing ships.[17]

The first purpose-built LST design was HMS Boxer. It was a scaled down design from ideas penned by Churchill. To carry 13 Churchill infantry tanks, 27 vehicles and nearly 200 men (in addition to the crew) at a speed of 18 knots, it could not have the shallow draught that would have made for easy unloading. As a result, each of the three (Boxer, Bruiser, and Thruster) ordered in March 1941 had a very long ramp stowed behind the bow doors.[18]

In November 1941, a small delegation from the British Admiralty arrived in the United States to pool ideas with the United States Navy's Bureau of Ships with regard to development of ships and also including the possibility of building further Boxers in the US.[18] During this meeting, it was decided that the Bureau of Ships would design these vessels. As with the standing agreement these would be built by the US so British shipyards could concentrate on building vessels for the Royal Navy. The specification called for vessels capable of crossing the Atlantic and the original title given to them was "Atlantic Tank Landing Craft" (Atlantic (T.L.C.)). Calling a vessel 300 ft (91 m) long a "craft" was considered a misnomer and the type was re-christened "Landing Ship, Tank (2)", or "LST (2)".

The LST(2) design incorporated elements of the first British LCTs from their designer, Sir Rowland Baker, who was part of the British delegation. This included sufficient buoyancy in the ships' sidewalls that they would float even with the tank deck flooded.[18] The LST(2) gave up the speed of HMS Boxer at only 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) but had a similar load while drawing only 3 ft (0.91 m) forward when beaching. In three separate acts dated 6 February 1942, 26 May 1943, and 17 December 1943, Congress provided the authority for the construction of LSTs along with a host of other auxiliaries, destroyer escorts, and assorted landing craft. The enormous building program quickly gathered momentum. Such a high priority was assigned to the construction of LSTs that the previously laid keel of an aircraft carrier was hastily removed to make room for several LSTs to be built in her place. The keel of the first LST was laid down on 10 June 1942 at Newport News, Virginia, and the first standardized LSTs were floated out of their building dock in October. Twenty-three were in commission by the end of 1942.

ROROs for road vehicles

 
Ferry boat in the southern Philippines in 1925
 
SS Empire Doric was one of the first commercial roro ferries. It was built as an LST and is pictured entering the harbour in Malta.

At the end of the first world war vehicles were brought back from France to Richborough Port[19] drive-on-drive-off using the train ferry. During the war British servicemen recognised the great potential of landing ships and craft. The idea was simple; if you could drive tanks, guns and lorries directly onto a ship and then drive them off at the other end directly onto a beach, then theoretically you could use the same landing craft to carry out the same operation in the civilian commercial market, providing there were reasonable port facilities. From this idea grew the worldwide roll-on/roll-off ferry industry of today. In the period between the wars Lt. Colonel Frank Bustard formed the Atlantic Steam Navigation Company, with a view to cheap transatlantic travel; this never materialised, but during the war he observed trials on Brighton Sands of an LST in 1943 when its peacetime capabilities were obvious.

In the spring of 1946 the company approached the Admiralty with a request to purchase three of these vessels. The Admiralty were unwilling to sell, but after negotiations agreed to let the ASN have the use of three vessels on bareboat charter at a rate of £13 6s 8d per day. These vessels were LSTs 3519, 3534, and 3512. They were renamed Empire Baltic, Empire Cedric, and Empire Celtic, perpetuating the name of White Star Line ships in combination with the "Empire" ship naming of vessels in government service during the war.

On the morning of 11 September 1946 the first voyage of the Atlantic Steam Navigation Company took place when Empire Baltic sailed from Tilbury to Rotterdam with a full load of 64 vehicles for the Dutch Government. The original three LSTs were joined in 1948 by another vessel, LST 3041, renamed Empire Doric, after the ASN were able to convince commercial operators to support the new route between Preston and the Northern Ireland port of Larne. The first sailing of this new route was on 21 May 1948 by Empire Cedric. After the inaugural sailing Empire Cedric continued on the Northern Ireland service, offering initially a twice-weekly service. Empire Cedric was the first vessel of the ASN fleet to hold a passenger certificate, and was allowed to carry fifty passengers. Thus Empire Cedric became the first vessel in the world to operate as a commercial/passenger roll-on/roll-off ferry, and the ASN became the first commercial company to offer this type of service.

 
All ships of the Alaska Marine Highway employ RORO systems.

The first RORO service crossing the English Channel began from Dover in 1953.[20] In 1954, the British Transport Commission (BTC) took over the ASN under the Labour Governments nationalization policy. In 1955 another two LSTs where chartered into the existing fleet, Empire Cymric and Empire Nordic, bringing the fleet strength to seven. The Hamburg service was terminated in 1955, and a new service was opened between Antwerp and Tilbury. The fleet of seven ships was to be split up with the usual three ships based at Tilbury and the others maintaining the Preston to Northern Ireland service.

During late 1956, the entire fleet of ASN were taken over for use in the Mediterranean during the Suez Crisis, and the drive-on/drive-off services were not re-established until January 1957. At this point ASN were made responsible for the management of twelve Admiralty LST(3)s brought out of reserve as a result of the Suez Crisis too late to see service.

 
A river barge carrying tractors

Further developments

 
Atlantic Conveyor approaching the Falklands. On or about 19 May 1982.

The first roll-on/roll-off vessel that was purpose-built to transport loaded semi trucks was Searoad of Hyannis, which began operation in 1956. While modest in capacity, it could transport three semi trailers between Hyannis in Massachusetts and Nantucket Island, even in ice conditions.[21]

In 1957, the US military issued a contract to the Sun Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Chester, Pennsylvania, for the construction of a new type of motorized vehicle carrier. The ship, USNS Comet, had a stern ramp as well as interior ramps, which allowed cars to drive directly from the dock, onto the ship, and into place. Loading and unloading was sped up dramatically. Comet also had an adjustable chocking system for locking cars onto the decks and a ventilation system to remove exhaust gases that accumulate during vehicle loading.

During the 1982 Falklands War, SS Atlantic Conveyor was requisitioned as an emergency aircraft and helicopter transport for British Hawker Siddeley Harrier STOVL fighter planes; one Harrier was kept fueled, armed, and ready to VTOL launch for emergency air protection against long range Argentine aircraft. Atlantic Conveyor was sunk by Argentine Exocet missiles after offloading the Harriers to proper aircraft carriers, but the vehicles and helicopters still aboard were lost.[22]

After the war, a concept called the shipborne containerized air-defense system (SCADS) proposed a modular system to quickly convert a large RORO into an emergency aircraft carrier with ski jump, fueling systems, radar, defensive missiles, munitions, crew quarters, and work spaces. The entire system could be installed in about 48 hours on a container ship or RORO, when needed for operations up to a month unsupplied. The system could quickly be removed and stored again when the conflict was over.[23] The Soviets flying Yakovlev Yak-38 fighters also tested operations using the civilian RORO ships Agostinio Neto and Nikolai Cherkasov.[24]

See also

References

  1. ^ Asklander, Micke. . Fakta om Fartyg (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 2012-10-04. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
  2. ^ Asklander, Micke. . Fakta om Fartyg (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 2012-10-15. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
  3. ^ Louis Llovio (2007). "World's largest car carrier leaves Port of Baltimore on its maiden voyage". The Baltimore Daily Record. Retrieved 13 September 2011.
  4. ^ "Using Solar Power for Ship Propulsion The World First Solar-Powered Ship Sails". NYK-Nippon Oil Joint Project. NYK Line. 5 January 2009. Retrieved 30 May 2013.
  5. ^ Bryson, Bill (1995). Notes from a Small Island. London: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-40534-8.
  6. ^ Makarios, Emmanuel (2003). The Wahine Disaster: a tragedy remembered. Wellington: Grantham House. p. 50. ISBN 1-86934-079-5.
  7. ^ Wright, Paul (2016 February 4) "Abandoned cargo ship Modern Express successfully dragged into port after rescue operation," International Business Times.
  8. ^ a b Marshall, John (1989). The Guinness Railway Book. Enfield: Guinness Books. ISBN 0-8511-2359-7. OCLC 24175552.
  9. ^ a b "The Train Ferries".
  10. ^ George Parker Bidder; not to be confused with the lawyer (his son)who represented Bouch at the Tay Bridge Inquiry
  11. ^ "Memoirs of Deceased Members". Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers. PART 1. 63 (1): 301–8. January 1881. ISSN 1753-7843. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
  12. ^ Shipway, J.S. (2004). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.
  13. ^ "Subterranea Britannica: Sites:Scotland Street Tunnel". subbrit.org.uk.
  14. ^ "News of the Week". Bathurst Free Press (NSW : 1849 - 1851). Bathurst, New South Wales: National Library of Australia. 10 August 1850. p. 3. Retrieved 30 May 2013.
  15. ^ Shipway, J.S. (2004). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.
  16. ^ a b Pratt, Edwin A (1921). British Railways and the Great War Book. London: Selwyn and Blount, Ltd. ISBN 1151852406.
  17. ^ Lenton, H.T. & Colledge, J.J. (1968). British and Dominion Warships of World War II. Doubleday and Company. p. 577.
  18. ^ a b c Brown, D.K. (1996). The Design And Construction Of British Warships 1939-1945, Vol 3 Amphibious Warfare Vessels And Auxiliaries. pp. 142–143. ISBN 0-85177-675-2.
  19. ^ 'Richborough Port' by Rob Butler p21 (photo) p20 (text) published by Ramsgate Maritime Museum
  20. ^ "DinardViking". Simplon Postcards: The Passenger Ship Website. 2005. Retrieved 2012-10-22.
  21. ^ "Roll-On Roll-Off Ship" Popular Mechanics, April 1956, p. 87
  22. ^ "History of Fleet Air Arm Officers Association, FAAOA". fleetairarmoa.org.
  23. ^ . wingweb.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2013-10-19.
  24. ^ "The Soviet Navy Forger: Yak-36M, Yak-38, Yak-38U and Yak-38M". acig.org.

Further reading

  • Belson, Ken (July 13, 2012). "Around the World With 5,500 Cars". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
  • Liston, Jim (November 1969). "Oceangoing Drive-In". Popular Mechanics. Hearst Magazines: 100–103. ISSN 0032-4558. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
  • Todorov, Delyan Mihaylov (2016). Ro-Ro Handbook: A Practical Guide to Roll-On Roll-Off Cargo Ships. Atglen, Pennsylvania, USA: Schiffer Publishing. ISBN 9780764351235.

roll, roll, this, article, about, ships, that, carry, vehicles, roro, trains, rolling, highway, railroad, autorack, trailer, towed, tractor, carrier, trailer, computer, memory, management, technique, rollout, rollin, information, other, shipping, boats, such, . This article is about ships that carry vehicles For RORO trains see Rolling highway For the railroad car see Autorack For the trailer towed by a tractor see car carrier trailer For the computer memory management technique see Rollout Rollin For information on other shipping boats such as this see Merchant vessel RORO redirects here Not to be confused with Roro disambiguation Roll on roll off RORO or ro ro ships are cargo ships designed to carry wheeled cargo such as cars motorcycles trucks semi trailer trucks buses trailers and railroad cars that are driven on and off the ship on their own wheels or using a platform vehicle such as a self propelled modular transporter This is in contrast to lift on lift off LoLo vessels which use a crane to load and unload cargo RORO vessels have either built in or shore based ramps or ferry slips that allow the cargo to be efficiently rolled on and off the vessel when in port While smaller ferries that operate across rivers and other short distances often have built in ramps the term RORO is generally reserved for large oceangoing vessels The ramps and doors may be located in the stern bow or sides or any combination thereof Contents 1 Description 1 1 Car carriers 1 2 Seaworthiness 1 3 RORO variations 2 History 2 1 Invention 2 2 Expansion 2 3 The landing ship tank 2 4 ROROs for road vehicles 2 5 Further developments 3 See also 4 References 5 Further readingDescription EditTypes of RORO vessels include ferries cruiseferries cargo ships barges and RoRo service for air deliveries New automobiles that are transported by ship are often moved on a large type of RORO called a pure car carrier PCC or pure car truck carrier PCTC Elsewhere in the shipping industry cargo is normally measured by the tonne but RORO cargo is typically measured in lanes in metres LIMs This is calculated by multiplying the cargo length in metres by the number of decks and by its width in lanes lane width differs from vessel to vessel and there are several industry standards On PCCs cargo capacity is often measured in RT or RT43 units based on a 1966 Toyota Corona the first mass produced car to be shipped in specialised car carriers and used as the basis of RORO vessel size 1 RT is approximately 4m of lane space required to store a 1 5m wide Toyota Corona or in car equivalent units CEU The largest RORO passenger ferry is MS Color Magic a 75 100 GT cruise ferry that entered service in September 2007 for Color Line Built in Finland by Aker Finnyards it is 223 70 m 733 ft 11 in long and 35 m 114 ft 10 in wide and can carry 550 cars or 1270 lane meters of cargo 1 The RORO passenger ferry with the greatest car carrying capacity is Ulysses named after a novel by James Joyce owned by Irish Ferries Ulysses entered service on 25 March 2001 and operates between Dublin and Holyhead The 50 938 GT ship is 209 02 m 685 ft 9 in long and 31 84 m 104 ft 6 in wide and can carry 1342 cars 4101 lane meters of cargo 2 Loading a ro ro passenger car ferry Procyon Leader stern quarter ramp Train ferry and roll on roll off between Calabria and Sicily ROPAX ferry MS Ulysses approaching Dublin Port Ireland Fast ROPAX cruiseferry MS SuperSpeed 2 between Larvik Norway and Hirtshals Denmark Ferry terminal for the Peninsula Searoad Transport service with cars leaving a ferryCar carriers Edit The first cargo ships specially fitted for the transport of large quantities of cars came into service in the early 1960s These ships still had their own loading gear and so called hanging decks inside They were for example chartered by the German Volkswagen AG to transport vehicles to the U S and Canada During the 1970s the market for exporting and importing cars has increased dramatically and the number and type of ROROs has increased also In 1970 Japan s K Line built the Toyota Maru No 10 Japan s first pure car carrier and in 1973 built the European Highway the largest pure car carrier PCC at that time which carried 4 200 automobiles Today s pure car carriers and their close cousins the pure car truck carrier PCTC are distinctive ships with a box like superstructure running the entire length and breadth of the hull fully enclosing the cargo They typically have a stern ramp and a side ramp for dual loading of thousands of vehicles such as cars trucks heavy machineries tracked units Mafi roll trailers and loose statics and extensive automatic fire control systems The PCTC has liftable decks to increase vertical clearance as well as heavier decks for high and heavy cargo A 6 500 unit car ship with 12 decks can have three decks which can take cargo up to 150 short tons 136 t 134 long tons with liftable panels to increase clearance from 1 7 to 6 7 m 5 ft 7 in to 22 ft 0 in on some decks Lifting decks to accommodate higher cargo reduces the total capacity These vessels can achieve a cruising speed of 16 knots 18 mph 30 km h at eco speed while at full speed can achieve more than 19 knots 22 mph 35 km h With the building of Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics s 8 000 car equivalent unit CEU car carrier Faust out of Stockholm in June 2007 car carriers entered a new era of the large car and truck carrier LCTC 3 Currently the largest are Hoegh Autoliners six Horizon class vessels with capacity of 8 500 CEU each The car carrier Auriga Leader belonging to Nippon Yusen Kaisha built in 2008 with a capacity of 6 200 cars is the world s first partially solar powered ship 4 A pure car carrier ship s starboard side showing side ramp MV Tonsberg the largest car truck carrier Vehicle bay of the John H of Cross Sound FerrySeaworthiness Edit The seagoing RORO car ferry with large external doors close to the waterline and open vehicle decks with few internal bulkheads has a reputation for being a high risk design to the point where the acronym is sometimes derisively expanded to roll on roll over 5 An improperly secured loading door can cause a ship to take on water and sink as happened in 1987 with MS Herald of Free Enterprise Water sloshing on the vehicle deck can set up a free surface effect making the ship unstable and causing it to capsize Free surface water on the vehicle deck was determined by the court of inquiry to be the immediate cause of the 1968 capsize of the TEV Wahine in New Zealand 6 It also contributed to the wreck of MS Estonia Despite these inherent risks the very high freeboard raises the seaworthiness of these vessels For example the car carrier MV Cougar Ace listed 60 degrees to its port side in 2006 but did not sink since its high enclosed sides prevented water from entering In late January 2016 MV Modern Express was listing off France after cargo shifted on the ship Salvage crews secured the vessel and it was hauled into the port of Bilbao Spain 7 Some RORO ship casualties are mentioned here RORO variations Edit ConRO carrying trailers and containers USNS Shughart a non combatant RORO vessel unloading Stryker armored vehicles RORO variations Variation RemarksConRO The ConRo or RoCon vessel is a hybrid of a RORO and a container ship This type of vessel has a below deck area used for vehicle storage while stacking containerized freight on the top decks ConRo ships such as the G4 class of the Atlantic Container Line can carry a combination of containers heavy equipment oversized cargo and automobiles Separate internal ramp systems within the vessel segregate automobiles from other vehicles Mafi roll trailers and break bulk cargo LMSR Large Medium Speed Roll on Roll off LMSR refers to several classes of Military Sealift Command MSC roll on roll off type cargo ships Some are purpose built to carry military cargo while others are converted RoLo A RoLo roll on lift off vessel is another hybrid vessel type with ramps serving vehicle decks but with other cargo decks only accessible when the tides change or by the use of a crane ROPAX The acronym ROPAX roll on roll off passenger describes a RORO vessel built for freight vehicle transport along with passenger accommodation Technically this encompasses all ferries with both a roll on roll off car deck and passenger carrying capacities but in practice ships with facilities for more than 500 passengers are often referred to as cruiseferries citation needed History EditAt first wheeled vehicles carried as cargo on oceangoing ships were treated like any other cargo Automobiles had their fuel tanks emptied and their batteries disconnected before being hoisted into the ship s hold where they were chocked and secured This process was tedious and difficult and vehicles were subject to damage and could not be used for routine travel An early roll on roll off service was a train ferry started in 1833 by the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway which operated a wagon ferry on the Forth and Clyde Canal in Scotland 8 page needed Invention Edit Floating Railway opened in 1850 as the first roll on roll off train ferry in the world The first modern train ferry was Leviathan built in 1849 The Edinburgh Leith and Newhaven Railway was formed in 1842 and the company wished to extend the East Coast Main Line further north to Dundee and Aberdeen As bridge technology was not yet capable enough to provide adequate support for the crossing over the Firth of Forth which was roughly five miles across a different solution had to be found primarily for the transport of goods where efficiency was key The company hired the up and coming civil engineer Thomas Bouch who argued for a train ferry with a roll on roll off mechanism to maximise the efficiency of the system Ferries were to be custom built with railway lines and matching harbour facilities at both ends to allow the rolling stock to easily drive on and off 9 To compensate for the changing tides adjustable ramps were positioned at the harbours and the gantry structure height was varied by moving it along the slipway The wagons were loaded on and off with the use of stationary steam engines 9 8 page needed Bouch s ferry design Note the adjustable ramp Although others had had similar ideas Bouch was the first to put them into effect and did so with an attention to detail such as design of the ferry slip which led a subsequent President of the Institution of Civil Engineers 10 to settle any dispute over priority of invention with the observation that there was little merit in a simple conception of this kind compared with a work practically carried out in all its details and brought to perfection 11 The company was persuaded to install this train ferry service for the transportation of goods wagons across the Firth of Forth from Burntisland in Fife to Granton The ferry itself was built by Thomas Grainger a partner of the firm Grainger and Miller 12 The service commenced on 3 February 1850 13 It was called The Floating Railway 14 and intended as a temporary measure until the railway could build a bridge but this was not opened until 1890 its construction delayed in part by repercussions from the catastrophic failure of Thomas Bouch s Tay Rail Bridge 15 Expansion Edit Train ferry services were used extensively during World War I From 10 February 1918 high volumes of railway rolling stock artillery and supplies for the Front were shipped to France from the secret port of Richborough near Sandwich on the South Coast of England This involved three train ferries to be built each with four sets of railway line on the main deck to allow for up to 54 railway wagons to be shunted directly on and off the ferry These train ferries could also be used to transport motor vehicles along with railway rolling stock Later that month a second train ferry was established from the Port of Southampton on the South East Coast In the first month of operations at Richborough 5 000 tons were transported across the Channel by the end of 1918 it was nearly 261 000 tons 16 There were many advantages of the use of train ferries over conventional shipping in World War I It was much easier to move the large heavy artillery and tanks that this kind of modern warfare required using train ferries as opposed to repeated loading and unloading of cargo By manufacturers loading tanks guns and other heavy items for shipping to the front directly on to railway wagons which could be shunted on to a train ferry in England and then shunted directly on to the French Railway Network with direct connections to the Front Lines many man hours of unnecessary labour were avoided An analysis done at the time found that to transport 1 000 tons of war material from the point of manufacture to the front by conventional means involved the use of 1 500 labourers whereas when using train ferries that number decreased to around 100 labourers This was of utmost importance as by 1918 the British Railway companies were experiencing a severe shortage of labour with hundreds of thousands of skilled and unskilled labourers away fighting at the front The increase of heavy traffic because of the war effort meant that economies and efficiency in transport had to be made wherever possible 16 After the signing of the Armistice on 11 November 1918 train ferries were used extensively for the return of material from the Front Indeed according to war office statistics a greater tonnage of material was transported by train ferry from Richborough in 1919 than in 1918 As the train ferries had space for motor transport as well as railway rolling stock thousands of lorries motor cars and B Type buses used these ferries to return to England The landing ship tank Edit A Canadian LST off loads an M4 Sherman during the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943 During World War II landing ships were the first purpose built seagoing ships enabling road vehicles to roll directly on and off The British evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940 demonstrated to the Admiralty that the Allies needed relatively large ocean going ships capable of shore to shore delivery of tanks and other vehicles in amphibious assaults upon the continent of Europe As an interim measure three 4000 to 4800 GRT tankers built to pass over the restrictive bars of Lake Maracaibo Venezuela were selected for conversion because of their shallow draft Bow doors and ramps were added to these ships which became the first tank landing ships 17 The first purpose built LST design was HMS Boxer It was a scaled down design from ideas penned by Churchill To carry 13 Churchill infantry tanks 27 vehicles and nearly 200 men in addition to the crew at a speed of 18 knots it could not have the shallow draught that would have made for easy unloading As a result each of the three Boxer Bruiser and Thruster ordered in March 1941 had a very long ramp stowed behind the bow doors 18 In November 1941 a small delegation from the British Admiralty arrived in the United States to pool ideas with the United States Navy s Bureau of Ships with regard to development of ships and also including the possibility of building further Boxers in the US 18 During this meeting it was decided that the Bureau of Ships would design these vessels As with the standing agreement these would be built by the US so British shipyards could concentrate on building vessels for the Royal Navy The specification called for vessels capable of crossing the Atlantic and the original title given to them was Atlantic Tank Landing Craft Atlantic T L C Calling a vessel 300 ft 91 m long a craft was considered a misnomer and the type was re christened Landing Ship Tank 2 or LST 2 The LST 2 design incorporated elements of the first British LCTs from their designer Sir Rowland Baker who was part of the British delegation This included sufficient buoyancy in the ships sidewalls that they would float even with the tank deck flooded 18 The LST 2 gave up the speed of HMS Boxer at only 10 knots 19 km h 12 mph but had a similar load while drawing only 3 ft 0 91 m forward when beaching In three separate acts dated 6 February 1942 26 May 1943 and 17 December 1943 Congress provided the authority for the construction of LSTs along with a host of other auxiliaries destroyer escorts and assorted landing craft The enormous building program quickly gathered momentum Such a high priority was assigned to the construction of LSTs that the previously laid keel of an aircraft carrier was hastily removed to make room for several LSTs to be built in her place The keel of the first LST was laid down on 10 June 1942 at Newport News Virginia and the first standardized LSTs were floated out of their building dock in October Twenty three were in commission by the end of 1942 ROROs for road vehicles Edit Ferry boat in the southern Philippines in 1925 SS Empire Doric was one of the first commercial roro ferries It was built as an LST and is pictured entering the harbour in Malta At the end of the first world war vehicles were brought back from France to Richborough Port 19 drive on drive off using the train ferry During the war British servicemen recognised the great potential of landing ships and craft The idea was simple if you could drive tanks guns and lorries directly onto a ship and then drive them off at the other end directly onto a beach then theoretically you could use the same landing craft to carry out the same operation in the civilian commercial market providing there were reasonable port facilities From this idea grew the worldwide roll on roll off ferry industry of today In the period between the wars Lt Colonel Frank Bustard formed the Atlantic Steam Navigation Company with a view to cheap transatlantic travel this never materialised but during the war he observed trials on Brighton Sands of an LST in 1943 when its peacetime capabilities were obvious In the spring of 1946 the company approached the Admiralty with a request to purchase three of these vessels The Admiralty were unwilling to sell but after negotiations agreed to let the ASN have the use of three vessels on bareboat charter at a rate of 13 6s 8d per day These vessels were LSTs 3519 3534 and 3512 They were renamed Empire Baltic Empire Cedric and Empire Celtic perpetuating the name of White Star Line ships in combination with the Empire ship naming of vessels in government service during the war On the morning of 11 September 1946 the first voyage of the Atlantic Steam Navigation Company took place when Empire Baltic sailed from Tilbury to Rotterdam with a full load of 64 vehicles for the Dutch Government The original three LSTs were joined in 1948 by another vessel LST 3041 renamed Empire Doric after the ASN were able to convince commercial operators to support the new route between Preston and the Northern Ireland port of Larne The first sailing of this new route was on 21 May 1948 by Empire Cedric After the inaugural sailing Empire Cedric continued on the Northern Ireland service offering initially a twice weekly service Empire Cedric was the first vessel of the ASN fleet to hold a passenger certificate and was allowed to carry fifty passengers Thus Empire Cedric became the first vessel in the world to operate as a commercial passenger roll on roll off ferry and the ASN became the first commercial company to offer this type of service All ships of the Alaska Marine Highway employ RORO systems The first RORO service crossing the English Channel began from Dover in 1953 20 In 1954 the British Transport Commission BTC took over the ASN under the Labour Governments nationalization policy In 1955 another two LSTs where chartered into the existing fleet Empire Cymric and Empire Nordic bringing the fleet strength to seven The Hamburg service was terminated in 1955 and a new service was opened between Antwerp and Tilbury The fleet of seven ships was to be split up with the usual three ships based at Tilbury and the others maintaining the Preston to Northern Ireland service During late 1956 the entire fleet of ASN were taken over for use in the Mediterranean during the Suez Crisis and the drive on drive off services were not re established until January 1957 At this point ASN were made responsible for the management of twelve Admiralty LST 3 s brought out of reserve as a result of the Suez Crisis too late to see service A river barge carrying tractors Further developments Edit Atlantic Conveyor approaching the Falklands On or about 19 May 1982 The first roll on roll off vessel that was purpose built to transport loaded semi trucks was Searoad of Hyannis which began operation in 1956 While modest in capacity it could transport three semi trailers between Hyannis in Massachusetts and Nantucket Island even in ice conditions 21 In 1957 the US military issued a contract to the Sun Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Chester Pennsylvania for the construction of a new type of motorized vehicle carrier The ship USNS Comet had a stern ramp as well as interior ramps which allowed cars to drive directly from the dock onto the ship and into place Loading and unloading was sped up dramatically Comet also had an adjustable chocking system for locking cars onto the decks and a ventilation system to remove exhaust gases that accumulate during vehicle loading During the 1982 Falklands War SS Atlantic Conveyor was requisitioned as an emergency aircraft and helicopter transport for British Hawker Siddeley Harrier STOVL fighter planes one Harrier was kept fueled armed and ready to VTOL launch for emergency air protection against long range Argentine aircraft Atlantic Conveyor was sunk by Argentine Exocet missiles after offloading the Harriers to proper aircraft carriers but the vehicles and helicopters still aboard were lost 22 After the war a concept called the shipborne containerized air defense system SCADS proposed a modular system to quickly convert a large RORO into an emergency aircraft carrier with ski jump fueling systems radar defensive missiles munitions crew quarters and work spaces The entire system could be installed in about 48 hours on a container ship or RORO when needed for operations up to a month unsupplied The system could quickly be removed and stored again when the conflict was over 23 The Soviets flying Yakovlev Yak 38 fighters also tested operations using the civilian RORO ships Agostinio Neto and Nikolai Cherkasov 24 See also EditBC Ferries Car float Cruise ferry Frank Bustard Intermodal container Konkan Railway Corporation List of cargo types List of roll on roll off vessel accidents Roll on roll off discharge facility Rolling highway RORO ferry service Gujarat Societe des traversiers du Quebec Train ferry USNS Sea Lift T LSV 9 USN Ro Ro ship Washington State Ferries Yacht transport Transport portal Wikimedia Commons has media related to RoRo ships References Edit Asklander Micke M S Color Magic 2007 Fakta om Fartyg in Swedish Archived from the original on 2012 10 04 Retrieved 2008 03 05 Asklander Micke M S Ulysses 2001 Fakta om Fartyg in Swedish Archived from the original on 2012 10 15 Retrieved 2008 03 05 Louis Llovio 2007 World s largest car carrier leaves Port of Baltimore on its maiden voyage The Baltimore Daily Record Retrieved 13 September 2011 Using Solar Power for Ship Propulsion The World First Solar Powered Ship Sails NYK Nippon Oil Joint Project NYK Line 5 January 2009 Retrieved 30 May 2013 Bryson Bill 1995 Notes from a Small Island London Doubleday ISBN 978 0 385 40534 8 Makarios Emmanuel 2003 The Wahine Disaster a tragedy remembered Wellington Grantham House p 50 ISBN 1 86934 079 5 Wright Paul 2016 February 4 Abandoned cargo ship Modern Express successfully dragged into port after rescue operation International Business Times a b Marshall John 1989 The Guinness Railway Book Enfield Guinness Books ISBN 0 8511 2359 7 OCLC 24175552 a b The Train Ferries George Parker Bidder not to be confused with the lawyer his son who represented Bouch at the Tay Bridge Inquiry Memoirs of Deceased Members Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers PART 1 63 1 301 8 January 1881 ISSN 1753 7843 Retrieved 17 February 2012 Shipway J S 2004 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Oxford University Press Subterranea Britannica Sites Scotland Street Tunnel subbrit org uk News of the Week Bathurst Free Press NSW 1849 1851 Bathurst New South Wales National Library of Australia 10 August 1850 p 3 Retrieved 30 May 2013 Shipway J S 2004 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Oxford University Press a b Pratt Edwin A 1921 British Railways and the Great War Book London Selwyn and Blount Ltd ISBN 1151852406 Lenton H T amp Colledge J J 1968 British and Dominion Warships of World War II Doubleday and Company p 577 a b c Brown D K 1996 The Design And Construction Of British Warships 1939 1945 Vol 3 Amphibious Warfare Vessels And Auxiliaries pp 142 143 ISBN 0 85177 675 2 Richborough Port by Rob Butler p21 photo p20 text published by Ramsgate Maritime Museum Dinard Viking Simplon Postcards The Passenger Ship Website 2005 Retrieved 2012 10 22 Roll On Roll Off Ship Popular Mechanics April 1956 p 87 History of Fleet Air Arm Officers Association FAAOA fleetairarmoa org The full story of the Harrier Jump Jet Part Four the Second Generation Harriers The BAe MDD AV 8B Harrier II GR 5 GR 7 GR 9 amp T 10 Harriers wingweb co uk Archived from the original on 2013 10 19 The Soviet Navy Forger Yak 36M Yak 38 Yak 38U and Yak 38M acig org Further reading EditBelson Ken July 13 2012 Around the World With 5 500 Cars The New York Times Retrieved 25 May 2021 Liston Jim November 1969 Oceangoing Drive In Popular Mechanics Hearst Magazines 100 103 ISSN 0032 4558 Retrieved 8 March 2011 Todorov Delyan Mihaylov 2016 Ro Ro Handbook A Practical Guide to Roll On Roll Off Cargo Ships Atglen Pennsylvania USA Schiffer Publishing ISBN 9780764351235 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Roll on roll off amp oldid 1127573460, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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