Liberty Ship Replacement: SD 14 and Freedom Vessel

Liberty Ship Replacement: the SD 14 One of the most popular Liberty replacement ships was the British designed and built SD 14. Unfortunately the famous Sunderland shipyard which produced these closed in the 80s, though some were built under licence elsewhere. SD 14: 15,000 ton.

The Freedom vessel : This was a Japanese-built Liberty-replacement type. As can be seen, these are both unsophisticated ships with one ’tween or shelter deck. They are both very similar in size, though somewhat larger and faster than the original Liberty ship they replaced.

Since the advent of container vessels, general-cargo vessels are often referred to as break-bulk vessels, as the cargo is loaded into and broken out of their holds piece by piece. Because of the greater productivity of the container vessel, which is considered later, the number of cargo liners required will greatly decrease. Modern designs for break-bulk vessels have changed little from the above Liberty replacement types, though some of the tonnage used in the liner trades has taken the name of multi-purpose carrier.

These may have one or more tween decks, large open hatchways and probably a heavy-lift derric. The Freedom vessel. The heavy-lift derrick shown in the centre is known as a Stülken derrick, one of the most popular of the patent shipboard devices for handling heavy lifts.

In 2009 break-bulk vessels had around 7% of the carrying capacity but that over the last 20 years its total capacity has been falling. In 2009 there were 17,000 such vessels according to Lloyd’s Register annual statistics, which makes it still the most common ship type, though it is obviously a declining species.