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| | The importance of shipping | | |  The first water transport was probably nothing more than a log used to cross a stream. That journey may have taken place during the Ice Age or much earlier when our ancestral hominids spread from Africa. During the historic period dating back to 5,000 BC, sails were already in use, the first illustrations of sailing ships are from Egypt, and seafarers began to venture into the sea. | | | | Some of them went in search of new lands and different peoples with whom they could trade. At first they must have kept to the coastline, moving along it slowly and fearfully, for by then they would have learnt that the sea was dangerous and capricious and can turn from calm to storm within a few hours. According to one story, in 609 BC a Phoenician ship left Suez, intending to keep the coast to starboard, and four years later arrived back in Egypt, having sailed right round Africa. But eventually curiosity triumphed over timidity and at some point seafarers set out for the horizon and kept going until, the familiar coast had disappeared. | | | | Despite the uncertainties and dangers involved, it soon became apparent that trading by sea had advantages over trading by land. Land traders had mountains ranges and deserts to contend with and had to go miles out of their way to avoid them: ships could go more or less in straight lines. And ships could carry more goods more cheaply than horses and camels.
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 | | | | | | | Title | NOAA Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System (PORTS®)
( WEBSITE )
| | Description | The Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System (PORTS®) is a program of the National Ocean Service that supports safe and cost-efficient navigation by providing ship masters and pilots with accurate real-time information required to avoid groundings and collisions. This technological innovation has the potential to save the maritime insurance industry from multi-million dollar claims resulting from shipping accidents. PORTS® includes centralized data acquisition and dissemination systems that provide real-time water levels, currents, and other oceanographic and meteorological data from bays and harbors to the maritime user community in a variety of user friendly formats, including telephone voice response and Internet. Also, PORTS® provides nowcasts and predictions of these parameters with the use of numerical circulation models. Telephone voice access to accurate real-time water level information allows U.S. port authorities and maritime shippers to make sound decisions regarding loading of tonnage (based on available bottom clearance), maximizing loads, and limiting passage times, without compromising safety. | | Keywords | PORTS; NOAA; NOS; REAL-TIME; NAVIGATION; INFORMATION | | Geography Keywords | US; USA; UNITED STATES | | Content Language(s) | English | | Web Address (URL) | http://www.co-ops.nos.noaa.gov/d_ports.html | |
| Type of Website | Institutional website | |
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1076 Topics - 5135 Related Knowledge - 2534 Members - 34 Editors |
