Maritime Companies – Overview

The modern maritime industry revolves around the companies that make it all happen: oil and gas exploration and development companies, container shipping companies, ferry and passenger companies, cruise ship companies, commercial fishing companies, and many more. These maritime companies range in size from one vessel and a handful of employees to fleets in the hundreds with employees worldwide.

What Types of Vessels Do Maritime Companies Use?

There are so many maritime companies, and depending on their services, those companies use different ships and vessels.

To list them all would take a book, but some general ship categories can be considered that cover the bulk of the maritime industry:

• Tankers. Tankers are ships specially designed to carry large amounts of liquid. This could be oil, gas, water, or chemicals. Most of these ships are further specialized based on what type of liquid it carries. For instance, some tankers carry chemicals, those that carry fuel for other ships, and even those that are used to carry edible oils.

• Container ships. Container ships carry most of the goods transported around the world. They are huge and typically have one deck designed to fit several layers of large shipping containers. Although big, these ships can be manned by just a handful of people.

• Bulk carriers. These are similar to container ships but carry raw materials like metals, coal, metal ores, or anything mined from the ground. These ships carry solid materials, whereas tankers transport liquids. This difference means that the ships significantly differ in how they are designed and built.

• Ro-ro ships. Ro-ro stands for roll on-roll off. These are ships specially designed for shipping cars and other vehicles. Instead of using cranes to lift vehicles onto a ship, which uses energy and time and can be dangerous, these ships allow workers to drive the cars on and off.

• Passenger ships. Passenger ships are mostly ferries and cruise ships but technically may include any vessel that carries more than 12 people as passengers. Ferries may traverse lakes and rivers or take people across harbors and bays on ocean coasts. Cruise ships range in size from small to huge ships that carry thousands of passengers and travel worldwide on oceans, rivers, and lakes.

• Fishing vessels. Fishing vessels are used to catch fish and other marine creatures like lobster, crabs, and mussels, to name just a few. These are among the most dangerous ships to work, and maritime fishing companies may have anywhere from one to hundreds of vessels in a fleet. The ships may also vary greatly, from huge ocean-going ships trawling for schools of fish to smaller harbor-based ships.

• Specialty vessels. In addition to these basic categories, there are all kinds of specialized vessels. For instance, among fishing vessels, there are those specialized for crabbing and others for catching large ocean fish. Other specialty ships include tugboats, pilot boats, ice breakers, offshore oil drilling ships, and research vessels.

Employment in Maritime Companies

Maritime companies employ many people to work both on the vessels and in the ports that receive and launch ships.

Seamen are employees who spend most of their time on boats out to sea, while longshoremen work mostly in port. Among seamen, there are captains and mates, deckhands, cooks, fishermen, and divers.

Longshoremen work in ports and are responsible for various jobs, such as loading and unloading cargo, operating machinery, repairing ships, cleaning ships, and working in port warehouses.

Maritime companies involved in oil and gas recovery employ workers who may not be considered seamen or longshoremen. They work on platforms on the continental shelf that drill for natural resources.

These workers may operate the machinery or perform other services on the platform, such as cleaning or cooking, or may even be the workers that transport personnel and goods to and from the platform.

What Maritime Laws Protect Employees?

Maritime companies are subject to a unique set of laws in addition to the typical laws of their country and international laws. Maritime law is designed to protect workers, and companies must respect these laws to keep their employees safe and to compensate them if they are injured on the job.

When it comes to paying for an injury on the job, not all companies follow the letter of the law and may try to avoid paying as much as a worker is owed.

• The Jones Act protects seamen and allows them to seek compensation if they are hurt while performing a job at sea.
• The Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act provides a source of workers’ compensation for people doing dangerous work in a port.
• Neither of these laws applies to workers on oil and gas platforms, but they can seek compensation under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act in the event of an injury.
• Maritime companies must also comply with several other laws, such as Maintenance and Cure and the Death on the High Seas Act.

What Injuries and Accidents Occur in Maritime Work?

Maritime work is among the most dangerous jobs in the world. From accidents out at sea to bad weather and rough seas to equipment failure or poor decision-making in port, there are so many ways that maritime workers can get hurt.

Maritime companies must take on the risk of having workers injured or even killed on the job. Some of the more common accidents maritime workers might be involved in include: 

• Ships may capsize or sink and cause people to drown.
• Falls into the water can lead to drowning or hypothermia.
• Explosions, fires, and chemical exposure are all possible on tankers and during cargo loading and unloading in ports.
• Slips and falls are common on ships and in ports.
• The equipment used in many maritime industries can also hurt or kill people.
• Untrained workers are especially dangerous and can lead to unnecessary accidents like burns, lost limbs, crushed, drowning, head injuries, broken bones, and more.

What Challenges Do Maritime Companies Face?

The maritime industry can be lucrative, but it also presents many challenges. Maritime companies have to deal with the safety of employees for one thing. So many things can go wrong and cause injury or death, but these companies are responsible for minimizing the risks as much as possible.

Accidents in the industry can also cause substantial environmental problems, oil spills being the obvious example. Maritime companies must take all reasonable steps to avoid these and face the consequences if the worst happens.

A less obvious but still very real challenge is piracy. Pirates are not just from the past. They exist today and attack ships to steal goods being shipped. This has been especially prevalent on the eastern coast of Africa, but it happens worldwide.

Finally, companies must deal with cyber security as the industry increasingly relies on technology.

What Happens to Injured Maritime Workers?

When workers are injured in the maritime industry, maritime companies, or their insurance companies, must pay reasonable compensation. There are laws to protect these workers to ensure they get compensation, especially if the company was negligent.

Many maritime companies will do what they can to minimize the cost of an accident, which may mean trying to deny you the money you are owed.

Never accept an offer of compensation or sign any documents after an accident before you have spoken to a lawyer who can explain your rights. If you are a maritime worker and were hurt on the job, you can turn to an experienced maritime lawyer to determine the next steps.