Transporting goods by sea is something that we humans have done for a long, long time. Forget steam ships and tankers, the long history of seafreight has been done mostly under sail power or using the good old-fashioned paddle! Seafaring has always been dangerous; in fact, it is still listed as one of the most dangerous careers, but modern day companies and international laws do a lot to make seafreight safer and make it more cost effective. Let’s take a paddle into history and remember some of the key moments in humankind’s mastery of the sea lanes.
Humans first took to exploring by water very early on in history, and trade was soon to follow. The early pioneers of sea trade were probably the Austronesians trading around the myriad islands of the Pacific. By 1000 BC strong trade links existed between China, the Middle East and South Asia. The transportation of products by water became the earliest form of international seafreight with the regular transfer of crops, goods and people.
The Egyptians traded by boat up and down the Nile and had boats thousands of years ago. Their development of sails laid the foundations for technological advances that would soon make longer intercontinental seafreight possible. The Egyptians also developed load bearing boats to transport massive stone blocks from quarries for the building of their temples and pyramids. Soon they were using their maritime prowess to take seafreight across the Mediterranean to trade with the Greek and early Italian bronze age settlements.
Today an expert can plan routes safely and quickly, but in the early days of exploration that opened the door for seafreight, the expertise looked quite different. In Norse seafaring, ravens were used to find land, and maps and directions were recorded through songs and poems. In early maritime navigation the stars were essential and star charts for the purpose of seafreight navigation date back to as early as 600 BC. Arabian navigators were hugely influential to the development of navigation for seafreight trade, using magnetic compasses and instruments for accurate celestial navigation meaning that the trade ships could cross the ocean.
In the mid 19th century the use of steam engines and iron hulls revolutionised the size and weight that a container ship could reach. This, coupled with the growing demand for international trade from imperial colonies, established the world of seafreight as we recognize it today. The early traders would not recognize the massive ships that now carry the world’s goods. The largest seafreight container ship in the world was launched in April 2020 in South Korea for Hyundai. It is the HMM Algeciras which measures a colossal 1305 feet long and 200 feet wide. It would take five minutes just to walk its length!
Seafreight has moved on a lot from the early days of those early explorers in their canoes, but the essential need is the same. We want to get something from here to there in the easiest way possible, and the sea is still king!