subject: Shipping lanes [print this page] Almost all shipping movements in the world take place in two specific areas; ports (unsurprisingly) and shipping lanes. Whilst the first are physical geographical locations that are fairly easy to locate, the latter is more of a legal and navigational convention.
That's not to say that there aren't physical barriers that curtail shipping movements. Certainly, at one time the shipping lanes were essential to any successful long distance voyage. When ships relied almost entirely on favourable winds to make journeys quickly and when they were far more vulnerable to adverse weather, it was often a matter of life and death - or at least success and failure - to stay within the lanes, which offered prevailing winds and favourable undersea currents.
Today, the lanes are much less important. A diesel engine and a prop system is largely unaffected by ocean currents or winds, especially when fitted to a massive container ship or commercial freighter. Still, the lanes are still used for almost all merchant shipping - which accounts for a massive 90% of world trade - for several reasons.
These reasons are largely what led to the creation of a global maritime transport network in the beginning. They pass closely by the world's most important shipping destinations and they form an interconnecting system where ships can travel cargo to one location, unload it, then load another type of cargo and take it to another destination without turning back on themselves.
Also, to a limited extent, the winds still have a minor effect on ship movements; particularly large ships can be affected by 'heeling' - the lean caused by the force of wind on their broadsides. There's also the way they allow the nautical world to have some measure of certainty where the majority of ocean traffic will pass through.
This is important because by and large, cargo vessels are a hazard in themselves. They are much, much less manoeuvrable than smaller ships and so they can be quite dangerous to obstruct inadvertently. This is rarely a problem for small vessels, as larger ships also require greater depths to travel through - smaller vessels can easily take courses that are nearer to the shore an can often be much quicker than the lanes themselves.
Shipping lanes are also extremely useful in nautical disasters or emergency. They are the busiest parts of the sea and therefore anyone who's boat is in distress or has evacuated to a lifeboat can quickly find rescue if they stick within the lanes. Funnelling traffic and shipping movements along the lanes also helps law enforcement and national agencies police their waters, as overwhelmingly, legitimate trade will stick to the lanes - and even if contraband smugglers do follow the trade lanes, at the very least all of the suspects will be confined to the same rough area and route.
Shipping lanes
By: Lewis Grundon
welcome to Insurances.net (https://www.insurances.net)
