Break bulk cargo

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In shipping, break bulk cargo is any loose material that must be loaded individually, and not in shipping containers nor in bulk as with oil or grain. The term derives from the phrase breaking bulk — the extraction of a portion of the cargo of a ship or the beginning of the unloading process from the ship's holds. Break bulk cargo is often stacked on wooden pallets and lifted into and out of the hold of a vessel by gantry cranes on the dock or aboard the ship itself.

A break-in-bulk point is a place where goods are transferred from one mode of transport to another, for example the docks where goods transfer from ship to truck.

Break bulk was the most common form of cargo for most of the history of shipping. Since the 1950s the volume of break bulk cargo has declined dramatically worldwide as containerization has grown. Moving cargo on and off ship in containers is much more efficient, allowing ships to spend less time in port. Break bulk cargo also suffered from greater theft and damage.

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• Marc Levinson, The Box, How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger (Princeton Univ. Press 2006).
• Sauerbier, Charles L.; Meurn, Robert J. (2004). Marine cargo operations: a guide to stowage. Cambridge, Md: Cornell Maritime Press. ISBN 0-87033-550-2.