Coastal trading vessel

Coastal trading vessels, also known as coasters or skoots,[1] are shallow-hulled merchant ships used for transporting cargo along a coastline. Their shallow hulls mean that they can get through reefs where deeper-hulled seagoing ships usually cannot (26-28 feet), but as a result they are not optimized for the large waves found on the open ocean. Coasters can load and unload cargo in shallow ports. For European inland waterways, regulated to 33,49 m beam.

N3-S-A1 illustration from ""American World Traders-New Ships for the Merchant Marine, 1945
Coastal merchant vessel

World War II
N3-M-A1 as USS Enceladus (AK-80), August 1943 in original Navy configuration. Note Whirley crane, a part of the original N3-M-A1 design.
USAPRS Thomas F. Farrel, Jr. underway off the East Coast of the United States, 26 August 1944.

During World War II there was a demand for coasters to support troops around the world.

Type N3 ship and Type C1 ship were the designations for small cargo ships built for the United States Maritime Commission before and during World War II.[2][3] Both were use for close to shore and short cargo runs.[4][5][6] The Government of the United Kingdom used Empire ships type Empire F as merchant ships for coastal shipping. British seamen called these "CHANTs", possibly because they had the same hull form as Channel Tankers (CHANT); initially all the tankers were sold to foreign owners and therefore there was no conflict in nomenclature. The USA and UK both used coastal tankers also.[7][8][9] UK used Empire coaster tankers and T1 tankers. Many coasters had some armament, such as a 5-inch (127 mm) stern gun, 3-inch (76.2 mm) bow anti-aircraft gun and Oerlikon 20 mm anti-aircraft gun. These were removed after the war.

After the war many of the ships were sold to private companies all around the world.[10][11]

Shipyards

Major coastal trading vessel shipyards include:[12]

See also

References
  1. Louis, Murray A. "Skoots to the Rescue: A Microcosm of the Dunkirk Evacuation, Operation "Dynamo"" (PDF). The Journal of the Orders and Medals Society of America. 51 (1). Retrieved 1 February 2021.
  2. National Park Service, Scotts Bluff
  3. T. Colton. "N-Type Coastal Cargo Ships". Merchant Ship Construction in U.S. Shipyards. Archived from the original on 3 November 2011. Retrieved 12 January 2012.
  4. Auke Visser's, T1 Tanker types
  5. navsource.org USS Klickitat (AOG-64)
  6. shipbuildinghistory.com, T-1 Tankers
  7. marad.dot.gov, Coastal Tankers
  8. marad.dot.gov, Coastal Tanker
  9. marad.dot.gov, Activation specifications for t1 -m-bt2 tanker
  10. Mitchell, William Harry & Sawyer, Leonard Arthur (1990). The Empire Ships (2nd ed.). London, New York, Hamburg, Hong Kong: Lloyd's of London Press Ltd. ISBN 1-85044-275-4.
  11. "NJ Scuba, Tanker". Archived from the original on 2016-10-07. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  12. USM shipyards, usmm.org
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