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I suspect that the answer more likely lies in the direction of "there's a lot of ships smaller than the Emma Maersk". Canals, port clearances (bridges, channel depth, width), dockside facilities, etc.., all put limits on ship sizes. There is a whole slew of "max" and other classifications: Panamax, Suezmax, Chinamax, Seawaymax, etc. "Handysize" is still my favourite of the lot. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_ship#Size_categories For small and local transit, think the US Great Lakes, the Baltic Sea, English Channel, Mediterranean, South Pacific islands (many small populations and ports), and coastal transit along Africa, South America, and Asia, outside the major ports, there's still call for many much smaller ships. As with other areas, automating smaller instances may be where the payoffs come as the relative labour costs are greater relative to total operating costs. Part of that comes from simple logistics: * You need multiple shifts.
* You need a helmsman, and an engineer, for each shift.
* You need a cook, and other housekeeping. That's already a crew of about 9 - 12. Regardless of whether your DWT is 20k tonnes or 400k tonnes, your staffing actually doesn't change all that much, and may well increase as smaller ships frequently have (and I presume staff) their own offloading equipment. |