Tonnage

[Frank Burroughs]

Trying to learn how tonnage terms relate. Tonnage is a volume equal to 100 cubic feet per ton. Gross tonnage is the ship and equipment. Net tonnage is what the ship can carry. Deadweight tonnage is with the ship fueled and provisioned. I know this goes further than my novel will. But, in for a penny, in for a pound

How close am I?

[happy daze john in oz]

Deck guys will tell you more but I thought 1 ton was equivalent to one cubic meter of space.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Trying to learn how tonnage terms relate.

Frank if I were you, I would rein in your desire to learn all things relating to tonnage, in my mouldy edition of 'Business and Law for the Shipmaster' there are 22 consecutive pages relating to tonnage in one section alone, with references to tonnage in other parts of this tome of 892 pages excluding prefixes and addendums. There are other explanations in 'Chartering and Shipping Terms', this only has 518 pages, both tomes are recommended if you suffer from insomnia.

For the purposes of your novel I would stick to a measurement used by countless seamen over the ages since time immemorial which indicated the size of the ship, such as she's a 2000 tonner, 5000 tonner, 10,000 tonner etc, which referred to the cargo carrying capacity of said vessel, known as DWCC = deadweight cargo carrying capacity, sometimes confused with DWT which includes cargo, stores, bunkers, fresh water, and also a constant, an estimated figure anything from 10 tons to 60 tons which covers things you may already have forgotten some small stores that escape your attention, like old ropes/wires/shackles/blocks etc etc. From the 2k, 5k, 10k you knew the size, length, of vessel and with a further description as heavy on deck you'd deduce she had more derricks than a similar size vessel and that advise you whether she would be hard work or not on deck, for an engineer it would indicate that he had more winches to maintain, and perhaps increased generating power down below, size could generally indicate many things to different departments

I'm sure some other deckie will eventually explain the nett, gross, Suez, Panama, light displacement, loaded displacement, exempted spaces for tonnage purposes etc in greater detail, as I am fully awake, have things to do, my wife will kill me if I go back to sleep

[j.sabourn]

Frank living in the USA will also have to contend with the American system of areas on a ship regarding to cubic measurements which include nett and gross .certain areas are only deemed for cargo. If have access to get a bale of Cotton through . Apart from simple lingo like accomodation like the US term stateroom , on a British ship this would be cabin. JS....

[Frank Burroughs]

As far as my novel goes, just do not want to put more cargo on the ships than they can handle. A general knowledge of tonnage will suffice. "Tonner" will work for my readers and save wordage.

Had a good week writing. Hitting my four written pages a day goal. The rest of the day is spent reading and buying more books.

[Captain Kong]

The original Tonnage was from a Tunn of wine, a Barrel of wine was 100 cubic feet so that was a Tunn.
and an old sailing ship was classified as being able to carry X number of Tunns Burthen

I think.?

[Frank Burroughs]

"Tunn of wine" I've read in two books. Believe it a fact.

If you were to load barrels on ship, would the drums be four on a pallet?
If so, how many pallets could you stack?
Sure that too much weight would crush the drums below. Also, it must mess with the center of gravity of the ship.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Frank, they didn't have pallets on sailing ships, even in my days 50's - 60' never had pallets, well not on the ships I sailed on, and certainly not in Skeldergate's day. Barrels of wine were never a problem, as they were never stowed upright, but were nested horizontally 5 - 6 high.

Be careful what books you buy, you don't want to become a land based sea lawyer, some of us have faced those and they try to equate what happens on a ship to what happens on land, and that don't work, as one smart ass didn't know the difference between brake and break, hard for him to understand there are no brakes on a ship and that's why it was possible to break a ship.

[Lewis McColl]

#2 um!!! 1 cubic metre of lead!! 1 cubic metre of feathers!! 1 cubic metre of Water for all intents and purposes = 1 tonne

A cubic metre of pure water at the temperature of maximum density (3.98 °C) and standard atmospheric pressure (101.325 kPa) has a mass of 1000 kg, or one tonne. At 0 °C, the freezing point of water, a cubic metre of water has slightly less mass, 999.972 kilograms.

[j.sabourn]

There is no short answer to that Frank. All depends on circumstances .pallet size , weight of barrels , common sense , stability which you are not going to learn overnight, experience , maybe easier to say an excuse to make them lighter would be to sample them. There was a foreign examiner in Newcastle on Tyne one time whose favourite question was to discharge a rolls Royce off one of the surf ports of west Africa , after going through the motions of various answers which he disclaimed , the answer he wanted was to seal the car up lower it into the water and tow it ashore with the ships motor lifeboat.A stupid question and a stupid answer ,but it was what he wanted to hear to get past him. There are always stupid people in any profession. JS.