From container ships to fishing boats, these are the boats that put food on the table and clothes on our backs.

We are incredibly lucky to reside in the modern world where whatever that we could prefer is constantly at our fingertips (albeit for a price). Today we can have every vegetables and fruit in the middle of wintertime and buy low-cost clothes all year round, which is down to the network of global trade that connects almost all the nations on this planet together. Although we might mostly travel by train and airplane, the goods that keep the world trading and eating and dressing will tend to travel more frequently by huge types of boat for ocean voyages that can last for weeks, holding a huge quantity of freight. These container ships are the reason that worldwide trade works, able to carry things incredibly cheaply throughout the entire planet; a tee shirt can be delivered from Asia to America for the price of 14 pence, for example. These ships are often the size of a high-rise building, holding 10s of 1000s of containers, as many as a fifty-mile long goods train. Individuals like the CEO of AP Moller Maersk will understand the significance of container ships to international trade.

When we are talking about worldwide trade, it might be simple to envision that huge ships crossing the world's greatest oceans are the only ones that actually matter, however that is not the case at all. Not all goods come straight into the country in which they will be bought and sold, however need to go a considerable distance after they have actually been dropped off by container ship as well. For this, types of boats and ships like ferries are just as essential, as freight will typically be unloaded from the enormous cargo ships and distributed from the ports by lorry or train, and ferryboats play an important function in reaching countries or communities that are separated by stretches of water. People like the CEO of DP World P&O and people like the CEO of Brittany Ferries will value the function that ferryboats play in getting items to everyone.

The modern world is a time of unprecedented production and commerce, and whilst that might may our lives more pleasant, it does not constantly have the very best effect on the world. The over exploitation of natural deposits like fishing grounds can have a disastrous impact on ecosystems and communities worldwide, which is why small boat types are just as essential to worldwide trade as huge ones are. Smaller sized fishing boat types have a much smaller sized effect on ecological communities than large trawlers, meaning that producing the food that we consume will not result in the collapse of fishing grounds or a huge amount of animals like dolphins and whales getting caught in the proverbial crossfire.