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<strong>ECSA</strong><br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Tramp</strong> <strong>Shipping</strong> <strong><strong>Mar</strong>ket</strong><br />
5.3 Competition between types of ship in the cargo fleet<br />
Although some ship types are well defined, it is difficult to divide the fleet into clear categories<br />
which provide a sound starting point for analysing market segmentation. Merchant ships are not<br />
mass-produced like cars or trucks and few ships in the fleet are precisely the same. Many are<br />
designed to meet a specific owner's needs, so classifying ships into types relies on selecting<br />
distinctive physical characteristics which serve to identify the `type' of ship when it is built.<br />
In practice there is often considerable scope for competition between different ship types. For<br />
example containerships can carry reefer cargo (or reefer ships can carry containers) or in some<br />
instances chemical tankers and gas tankers can carry oil products in bulk. <strong>The</strong> statistical<br />
breakdown of the ship segments under discussion is shown in Figure (6) and in more detail in<br />
Annex 2.<br />
5.4 <strong>The</strong> cargo handling economics & competition<br />
One of the major areas where shipowners have sought to establish a competitive advantage is by<br />
developing improved cargo handling. In some trades this has resulted in a major change in the<br />
design of the ships, for example vehicle carriers and forest products carriers. Because these<br />
specialised ships are generally designed to meet the needs of a specific group of clients (for<br />
Clarkson Research Services Limited 21 <strong>Mar</strong>ch <strong>2015</strong>
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