Shipping Port Types and Port Data

By: Andy Jones Click author's name for more of his/her articles

The general definition of a seaport is a harbour or town that is able to receive boats and ships and load and unload cargo. Other types of port include fishing ports, inland ports, dry ports, warm water ports, and cruise home ports. A seaport can generally be further divided into two types; cargo and cruise. For all types of port, for both ship and shore based personnel it is valuable to have access to comprehensive and accurate port data, databases and port guides.

Harbours are natural or manmade shelters for ships and boats. It is required that they be deep enough to admit the draft of ships and large boats. You would normally expect a port to sit within a harbour, the two are distinctly different. A natural harbour will on the most part be surrounded by land which will have a sheltering effect on the waters within. A good example of a natural harbour is San Diego Bay in the USA which is 12 miles long. Manmade harbors are constructed with seawalls and breakwaters and sometimes require dredging due to sedimentation of sand and mud. The world's largest artificial port is Rotterdam in the Netherlands which was also the world's busiest cargo port for many years up until 2004 when it was overtaken by Shanghai. A warm water port or ice free harbor is a port that does not freeze over in the winter such as Valdez in Mexico giving the advantage of year round use. Ice free harbors even exist in extremely cold places such as Winter Quarters Bay in Antarctica.

Fishing ports are normally commercial centres for the harbouring of fishing vessels and landing of catches. They may have been some of the first historical ports to develop. A good example is Brixham in England that has a history reaching back over 1000 years and was mentioned in the Domesday book.

An inland port is a port that can be situated on a river or lake and have canal or river access to the sea.

A dry port is an inland terminal used for cargo storage and transport exchange that may be situated near to a seaport but with additional road, rail and air links for continued distribution of goods.

Cruise home ports are embarkation/disembarkation points for cruise ships where they will also take on supplies for voyages. Miami in the USA is the world's busiest cruise port.

Cargo ports are ports that handle a wide range of goods such as Petrochemicals, dry goods, minerals, cars and grains. Some ports will specialise in a certain commodity such as natural gas. To accommodate the large draft of commercial cargo vessels these ports need deep water channels for entry and egress. Due to the difficulties of navigating port entry there is usually a tug or piloting service operated by the port authority. A fundamental part of port navigation may be access to accurate port data. Usually this is by way of a port directory, guides or a port database. Often these will offer the required information, for example, port plans or a ship's atlas.

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About The Author: Written by Andy Jones for Shipping Guides who provide port data, databases and port guides. This information includes mooring diagrams and port plans. For more information, visit the site at www.portinfo.co.uk