Specialist

Overview

This specialist segment is something of a catch all, and this includes offshore vessels (5,000+), service ships (3,000+), specialist cargo and heavy lift (330+) along with large fishing vessels (5,600+), large tugs (920) over 500GT. This is naturally a very mixed bag and collectively represents roughly the same number of ships as the bulk carrier segment.
The ages of these vessels is varied, the percentages of ships over 15 years are as follows; offshore vessels (c.50%), service ships (83%), specialist cargo and heavy lift (50%) along with large fishing vessels (70%) and large tugs (c.65%) over 500GT.

• Specialized Cargo Ships include; Heavy Load Carrier, Livestock Carrier, Nuclear Fuel Carrier etc.
• Offshore Vessels include; Drilling Ships, FSO, Oil & Gas, Mining Vessels, Offshore Supply and Support Vessel, Pipe-Layers, etc.
• Service Ships include; Aircraft Transport Ship, Buoy/Lighthouse Vessels, Cable-Layer and Repair Ships, Crew Supply Vessels, Dredgers, Icebreakers, Patrol Vessels, Pilot Vessel, Research Vessels, Sail Training Ship, Salvage, Search & Rescue Vessel, Wind Turbine Installation Vessel, etc.
• Fishing Ships include; Fishing Vessels, Fish Factory Ships, Fish Processing Vessel, Trawlers etc.

Source: UNCTAD calculations, based on data from Clarksons Research Shipping Intelligence Network, Review of Maritime Transport 2024 as of 01 January 2024
The World Merchant Fleet 2022 – statistics from Equasis

Wind Propulsion Development & Forecasts

There have not been a large number of wind propulsion installations across these segments, however there is real potential to develop these especially where these ships have substantial deck space for fixed wind propulsion systems, potential for containerised installations and off deck systems.

There are currently two heavy lift vessels, as of January 2025 with the largest a 153m, 17,223GT Heavy Lift Vessel – Deck Carrier along with one Nuclear Fuel Carrier. The service ship segment does include training ships and there are a small number of sail training ships, however some of these are military or coastguard operated vessels, therefore not included in these numbers. When it comes to fishing vessels, we have a number of smaller fishing vessels installed with wind systems but nothing in the large segment yet.