Vessel’s tonnage: it has some definition as below:

+ Displacement Tonnage

+ Standard Displacement Tonnage

+ Deadweight Tonnage

+ Lightweight Tonnage

+ Gross Tonnage

+ Net Tonnage

What all these different units of measurement mean?

1) Displacement Tonnage:

Displacement tonnage is nothing more than the total weight of the volume of water a ship
“displaces” when it is sitting in the water.

2) Standard Displacement Tonnage:

Standard displacement tonnage = “displacement tonnage” – ( the weight of any fuel and
potable water carried on board the ship )

3) Deadweight Tonnage:
Deadweight tonnage is the weight (in tons) of all the cargo, fuel, dry provisions, supplies, etc.
carried on board the ship.

In other words:

Deadweight = “displacement tonnage” – “lightweight tonnage”

Deadweight tonnage is a good indication for ship owners and clients of how much revenue
the vessel is capable of generating.

4) Lightweight Tonnage:

Lightweight tonnage is best described as the weight of the ship when it was built in the
shipyard including all framing, machinery, decking, etc.

However, lightweight tonnage does not include the weight of any consumable such as fuel,
water, oil, or supplies.

5) Gross Tonnage:

Gross Tonnage is a measure of the ships total interior volume and is calculated by
multiplying the interior volume “V” of the ship in cubic meters by a variable known as “K”
(which varies depending on the ships overall volume).
6) Net Tonnage:

Similar to Gross Tonnage, Net Tonnage is a measure of the total interior volume of a ship’s
cargo spaces and is calculated in much the same way. The total volume of designated cargo
spaces in cubic meters is then multiplied by myriad factors resulting in an official net tonnage
value. The actual calculation of Net Tonnage is one of the more complicated tonnages to
calculated and beyond the scope of this article but takes into account factors such as moulded
draft and the number of passengers a vessel is rated to carry.

Ship Tonnage
Ship tonnage is a measure of what a ship can carry. The two major categories of ship tonnage
are tonnage by weight and tonnage by volume.

+ Tonnage by weight, or displacement, is the weight of water displaced by a loaded vessel.

This weight is expressed in metric tons. A metric ton is the weight of 1 m3 of fresh water.

+ Tonnage by volume is based on the English system of the measure of cubic capacity. In
this system, 100 ft3 is called a ton. It is equal to 2.83 m3. For example, a ship that has a
tonnage by volume of 1,000 tons can hold 100,000 ft3 of cargo.
Two categories of ship tonnage are (A) tonnage by weight and (B) tonnage by volume.

Ship Displacement
To gauge a ship’s weight, or its displacement, at any time during the loading or unloading of
cargo, the ship’s officers take the average of the bow (forward part of the ship) and stern
(back part of the ship) drafts, the vertical distance from the waterline to the keel (lowest
structural point on ship). The heavier a ship is, the lower it sits in the water, and the greater
the weight of displaced water.

Draft markson a vessel’s bow show the distance in feet (ft) from the keel to the waterline.
An enlargement of the bow draft of the ship in below picture shows that the bow draft is 30 ft
(approximately 9.1 m). Look at the displacement curve shown in below picture for the ship in
below picture. Different ships have different displacement curves. If this ship were loaded to
its 25-foot draft mark, it would have a displacement of approximately 18,000 metric tons.

Draft marks on a ship’s hull are to estimate displacement.

Load lines, or Plimsoll marks, show the maximum depth to which a ship can be legally
loaded in different zones and seasons. They are used for ship safety.

Above picture shows the placement of Plimsoll marks and draft marks on a ship. In the
enlarged view of the Plimsoll marks shown in pic’, the following abbreviations are used to
show load lines under different environmental conditions:

TF = tropical fresh water

F = fresh water
T = tropical
S = summer
W = winter
WNA = winter North Atlantic
A displacement curve is shown for the ship in pic’. The more cargo a ship is carrying, the
greater its displacement, and the lower it sits in the water (as indicated by a higher draft
mark).

Plimsoll marks, also called load lines, of a boat help to gauge how much cargo should be
loaded onto a ship.

Because the majority of shipping occurs in marine (saltwater) conditions, freshwater

conditions receive special notation. Ships that are sailed in fresh water will float deeper than
in salt water, because fresh water has a lower density than salt water. Ships sailing through
the North Atlantic ocean basin are also given special attention (Plimsoll code “WNA”)
because cold water is denser than warm water and affects a ship’s buoyancy. AB, in pic’,
stands for American Bureau of Shipping, the agency that validated the ship’s Plimsoll marks.