Vehicle Concept Art 8
Here’s some concept art for a RORO (roll-on/roll-off) container ship, also called a ConRO.
A roll-on/roll-off ship is a vessel that can carry anything on wheels: cars, trucks, and all sorts of vehicles. The vehicles are stored below deck, while the containers are stored above deck.
With 3 cranes and the ability to transport both containers and vehicles, it’s a very versatile cargo ship that is ideal for transporting goods to small lower-volume ports, like those in third world countries.
That also makes it an ideal target for pirates.
Silverfish says:
December 8th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
:O
Pirates.
Janell says:
December 9th, 2009 at 8:54 am
Is this to assume that no port (particularly those mentioned 3rd world countries) have no cranes installed at their docks? Would it truly be more cost-effective to lug cranes everywhere on each ship and risk them being stolen by pirates than to install a set of permanent cranes at a dock? Granted, for how little I know about ships, maybe this is a common installation on real-world ships.
I do like the concept. Hm, actually, I’m now wondering about how naval/marine ships work to dump supplies on random coastlines.
And the color of that water? love.
Glen Moyes says:
December 9th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
High volume ports do have their own cranes, in fact many container ships (even in the world of Hackberry Hollow) don’t have their own crane system because they only travel to these high volume ports. But there’s still a need to send cargo to those smaller ports and businesses that have factories at underdeveloped countries may have purchased container ships to send cargo to and from these locations.
So it’s probably not that cost effective to have the cranes on the ship if you are only delivering to high-volume ports that already have massive cranes. With more cranes you could load and unload faster, but I’m not sure how much money you would save by saving time at port; it normally takes 24 hours to fully load a container ship, and I imagine that it costs the shipping company a fair amount of money to use the dock.
Part of what makes this ship a good target for pirates is that it could have a wide range of cargo aboard. Since it’s also a RORO ship it could have vehicles, the on-board cranes make it easier to get to cargo of interest, and because they would commonly ship to low-volume ports and therefore water less traveled, they (the pirates) would be safer.
Austin says:
February 10th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
RO RO RO YOUR BOAT…