Maritime Glossary
Source-cited definitions for shipping, engineering, navigation, and regulatory terminology. Confidence-scored and verified against primary IMO, IHO, and industry sources.
- Tankeroil tanker · product tanker · chemical tanker
- A tanker is a ship built to carry liquid cargo in bulk in its own integral tanks. The category spans crude oil tankers, product tankers, chemical tankers and liquefied gas carriers, each specialised for the cargo it handles.
- vessel-typescargohigh confidence
- Time CharterT/C
- A time charter hires a ship for a period of time rather than for a single voyage. The charterer directs the ship's commercial employment and pays hire plus voyage costs such as bunkers and port charges, while the owner mans and maintains the vessel.
- commercialcharteringhigh confidence
- Trimlongitudinal trim
- Trim is the difference between a ship's draft forward and its draft aft. A vessel is trimmed by the head if deeper forward, by the stern if deeper aft, or on an even keel if the drafts are equal. Trim affects handling, fuel efficiency and hull stress.
- vessel-measurementsseamanshipengineeringhigh confidence
- Twenty-Foot Equivalent UnitTEU
- TEU stands for twenty-foot equivalent unit, the standard measure of container capacity. One TEU is the volume of a standard twenty-foot shipping container, giving the industry a common way to count boxes of different lengths.
- cargovessel-measurementscommercialhigh confidence