A ship is a large buoyant watercraft.
Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size, shape and cargo or passenger capacity. Ships are used on lakes, seas,rivers,and oceans for a variety of activities, such as the transport of people or goods, fishing, entertainment, public safety, and warfare. Historically, a "ship" was a sailing vessel with at least three square-rigged masts and a full bowsprit.
In armed conflict and in daily life, ships have become an integral part of modern commercial and military systems.
Fishing boats are used by millions of fishermen throughout the world.
Military forces operate vessels for naval warfare and to transport and support forces ashore.
Commercial vessels, nearly 35,
000 in number, carried 7.4 billion tons of cargo in
2007.[1]
As of 2011, there are about 104,304 ships with
IMO numbers in the world.[2]
Ships were always a key in history's great explorations and scientific and technological development.
Navigators such as
Zheng He spread such inventions as the compass and gunpowder. Ships have been used for such purposes as colonization and the slave trade, and have served scientific, cultural, and humanitarian needs. After the
16th century, new crops that had come from and to the
Americas via the
European seafarers significantly contributed to the world population growth.[3]
Ship transport has shaped the world's economy into today's energy-intensive pattern.
The first known vessels date back about
10,000 years ago, but could not be described as ships. The first navigators began to use animal skins or woven fabrics as sails. Affixed to the top of a pole set upright in a boat, these sails gave early ships range. This allowed men to explore widely, allowing for the settlement of
Oceania for example (about
3,000 years ago).
By around
3000 BC,
Ancient Egyptians knew how to assemble wooden planks into a hull.[9] They used woven straps to lash the planks together,[9] and reeds or grass stuffed between the planks helped to seal the seams.[9][10]
The Greek historian and geographer
Agatharchides had documented ship-faring among the early
Egyptians: "During the prosperous period of the
Old Kingdom, between the 30th and
25th centuries
B. C., the river-routes were kept in order, and
Egyptian ships sailed the
Red Sea as far as the myrrh-country."[11]
Sneferu's ancient cedar wood ship
Praise of the Two Lands is the first reference recorded (
2613 BC) to a ship being referred to by name.[12]
The ancient Egyptians were perfectly at ease building sailboats. A remarkable example of their shipbuilding skills was the
Khufu ship, a vessel
143 feet (44 m) in length entombed at the foot of the
Great Pyramid of Giza around
2500 BC and found intact in 1954.
It is known that ancient
Nubia/
Axum traded with
India, and there is evidence that ships from
Northeast Africa may have sailed back and forth between India/
Sri Lanka and Nubia trading goods and even to
Persia,
Himyar and
Rome.[13]
Aksum was known by the
Greeks for having seaports for ships from
Greece and
Yemen.[14]
Elsewhere in Northeast Africa, the
Periplus of the Red Sea reports that
Somalis, through their northern ports such as
Zeila and
Berbera, were trading frankincense and other items with the inhabitants of the
Arabian Peninsula well before the arrival of
Islam as well as with then Roman-controlled
Egypt.[15]
A panel found at
Mohenjodaro depicted a sailing craft.
Vessels were of many types; their construction is vividly described in the Yukti Kalpa
Taru, an ancient
Indian text on shipbuilding. This treatise gives a technical exposition on the techniques of shipbuilding. It sets forth minute details about the various types of ships, their sizes, and the materials from which they were built. The Yukti Kalpa Taru sums up in a condensed form all the available information. The Yukti Kalpa Taru gives sufficient information and dates to prove that, in ancient times, Indian shipbuilders had a good knowledge of the materials which were used in building ships. In addition to describing the qualities of the different types of wood and their suitability for shipbuilding, the Yukti Kalpa Taru gives an elaborate classification of ships based on their size.
The oldest discovered sea faring hulled boat is the Egyptian
Uluburun shipwreck off the coast of
Turkey, dating back to 1300 BC.[16]
The
Phoenicians, the first to sail completely around
Africa, and Greeks gradually mastered navigation at sea aboard triremes, exploring and colonizing the
Mediterranean via ship.
Around 340 BC, the
Greek navigator
Pytheas of Massalia ventured from Greece to
Western Europe and
Great Britain.[17] In the course of the
2nd century BC, Rome went on to destroy
Carthage and subdue the
Hellenistic kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean, achieving complete mastery of the inland sea, that they called
Mare Nostrum. The monsoon wind system of the
Indian Ocean was first sailed by Greek navigator
Eudoxus of Cyzicus in
118 BC
- published: 22 Feb 2016
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