New Register Shows Ro-Ro Fleet Much Larger

The theoretical world ro-ro fleet container capacity is almost half that of the world containership fleet. This startling fact emerges from the new Register of Ro-Ro Vessels, just published by international shipping consultants, Westinform.

It has unfortunately been true that in most discussions of the ro-ro concept there has been a dearth of hard facts about the total fleet. Numbers, capacity, age, etc., have largely been unknown, and the details of only relatively few individual vessels have been available.

It is to meet this need for information that the "Westinform Register of Ro-Ro Vessels 1977" has been compiled. The owner and/or operator of every single vessel listed in the Register has been approached in order to obtain the details essential in a ro-ro operation. For example, the total lane length, width and clear height are shown separately for each deck, and at each access point, the location and restrictions as to height width and weight on the ramp are shown.

Westinform have also analyzed the fleet in terms of flag, size and year and build distribution.

Experience gained through processing the information sent in by owners enabled Westinform to calculate the total linear length of the overall fleet, and hence the container capacity. The linear lane length is normally preferred as a measure of ro-ro capacity, compared to gross registered tonnage, and it is claimed that this is the first time that such an assessment of the total length has been published.

The main part of this new Westinform publication is the Register of Vessels, which is in alphabetical order by ships' name.

Train carriers have been distinguished separately as these constitute a very different type of vessel, as have newbuildings on order. Alphabetical ordering by name is not always suitable when the search is according to another categorization, for example, when one is looking for vessels of a particular size, or belonging to a certain owner or manager. This can be a time-consuming process when the fleet is only ordered according to the ship's name, so a cross reference has been provided, grouping vessels in the following ways: in order of gross registered tonnage ; under alphabetical order of owner/manager; under the shipyards that constructed them; under the manufacturer of the engine installed.

The Westinform Register of Ro-Ro Vessels contains over 500 pages of information, including all the standard register details such as Draft, Dwt, Nrt, Grt, Beam, Loa, Speed, etc. Individual copies can be obtained for U.S.

$50 each, including postage, from The Westinform Service, 9 Cork Street, London, England W1X 1PD.

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First published in 1881 Maritime Reporter is the world's largest audited circulation publication serving the global maritime industry.