From the enormous to the tiny, boats of all shapes and sizes play various functions in delivering food and clothes to you.

We are extremely lucky to reside in the modern world where whatever that we could want is always at our fingertips (albeit for a price tag). Today we can have every fruit and vegetable in the middle of wintertime and buy low-cost clothes throughout the year, and that is down to the network of international trade that links almost all the nations on this planet together. Although we might mostly travel by train and aircraft, the goods that keep the world buying and selling and consuming and dressing will tend to travel more frequently by huge types of boat for ocean trips that can last for weeks, holding a massive quantity of cargo. These container ships are the main reason that global trade works, able to transfer things incredibly cheaply throughout the whole planet; a tee shirt can be shipped from Asia to America for the cost of 14 cent, for instance. These ships are frequently the size of a skyscraper, holding tens of thousands of containers, as much as a fifty-mile long freight train. People like the CEO of AP Moller Maersk will understand the significance of container ships to international trade.

The modern world is a time of unmatched production and commerce, and whilst that might may our lives more convenient, it does not always have the best effect on the world. The over exploitation of natural resources like fishing grounds can have a terrible influence on environments and communities worldwide, which is why small boat types are just as crucial to global trade as big ones are. Smaller fishing boat types have a much smaller effect on ecological communities than huge trawlers, implying that producing the food that we eat will not result in the collapse of fishing grounds or a large quantity of animals like dolphins and whales getting captured in the proverbial crossfire.

When we are talking about global trade, it might be easy to think of that massive ships crossing the world's biggest oceans are the only ones that actually matter, however that is not the case at all. Not all items come directly into the country in which they will be bought and sold, but have to travel a considerable distance after they have been delivered by container ship as well. For this, types of boats and ships like ferries are just as important, as cargo will often be offloaded from the enormous cargo ships and distributed from the ports by lorry or train, and ferries play a critical role in reaching countries or areas that are separated by stretches of water. Individuals like the CEO of DP World P&O and individuals like the CEO of Brittany Ferries will value the function that ferryboats play in getting products to everyone.