Small Vehicle Ferries

Types of Small Vehicle Ferries

Boats are watercrafts that are designed to float and move through water. Boats are generally classified as small water craft.

One of the most common boats that can be seen floating around is a small vehicle ferry.

A small vehicle ferry is a marine transport. It is larger than what people would regard as a boat. In fact, considering its size, it is a ship. However, since it usually travels in inland water or near the coast, the vessel is considered a boat.

As its name implies, a small vehicle ferry is a vessel that carries passengers and their vehicles. Most of the vehicles that it can carry are limited to cars and minivans. However, larger ferries can accommodate trucks, freight containers and even railroad cars.

Small vehicle ferries operate on regular and frequent return services. They are part of a region's public transport system especially in waterside cities and islands. Ferry operation allows transportation between points at a cost that is much lower than the construction and maintenance of bridges or tunnels.

There are several types of small vehicle ferry designs. Their designs depend on a lot of factors such as the length of the route, the passenger and vehicle capacity, the speed requirements and the environmental conditions that the vessel must deal with.

A hydrofoil is one kind of ferry design. Hydrofoils are quite fast, thanks to its underwater wing design which lifts the hull out of the water. This feature reduces drag. However, hydrofoils are far too light to carry small vehicles.

The hydrofoil's disadvantage is ameliorated by catamaran ferries. Catamarans are small vehicle ferries that are larger than most hydrofoils and just slightly slower. Featuring triple hulls and water jet engines, catamaran ferries can carry as few as 10 cars to as many as 300 cars. The huge Stena HSS class catamarans that travel from the United Kingdom to mainland Europe, for example, can carry 1,500 passengers and 375 cars.

A more common but slower type of small vehicle ferry is the Roll-On/Roll-Off ferries or RORO for short. ROROs are large ferries that can carry a lot of small vehicles and even trucks. A RORO has a large ramp at its rear. This ramp makes loading and unloading of vehicles easy. In heavy seas, ROROs are dangerous, however.

A variation of the RORO is the RoPax Ferries. These small vehicle ferries have a large garage intake. This garage is usually open air, which means it doesn't have a roof. It also has a relatively large passenger capacity. Many RoPax ferries have ramps on both their bows and sterns.

Other small vehicle ferries include hovercrafts, cruise ferries and cable ferries.