16. Discuss these questions.

Where did the water transport develop most rapidly? Why?

What influenced the development of water transportation?

What allowed long voyages to be made with much greater safety?

READING

17. Read the text and translate it into Russian.

TEXT A

Water Transport

Transportation concerns the movement of products from a source such as a plant, factory, or work-shop to a destination such as a ware-house, customer, or retail store. Transportation may take place via air, water, rail, road, pipeline, or cable routes, using planes, boats, trains, trucks, and telecommunications equipment as the means of transportation.

Water transportation is the least expensive and slowest mode of freight transport. It is generally used to transport heavy products over long distances when speed is not an issue. The main advantage of water transportation is that it can move products all over the world.

The small effort is needed to move floating craft. A heavy boat or a barge weighing several tons can be moved through the water, slowly but steadily, by one man.

The raft made of logs of wood is the earliest type of boat. It seems to be clumsy vessels, although the Norwegian scientist Thor Heyerdahl and his five companions in 1947 made a voyage on the raft from Peru to Tuamotu Islands - a distance of 4,500 miles.

The water transport in ancient times developed most rapidly on great rivers. The ancient Romans used vessels to carry their armies and supplies to colonies. These ships, usually called galleys, continued to be used in the Mediterranean till 1750.

The introduction of the magnetic compass allowed long voyages to be made with much greater safety. At the end of the 15th century, sailing vessels carried men from Europe to America and round Africa to India.

One of the earliest steamboats was tested at the end of the 18th century. The first steamship to cross the Atlantic was the Savannah, 98-foot ship built in New York, which made the crossing in 1819. Like all the early steamships, it had sails as well as paddles. By the middle of the 19th century it became possible to build much larger ships as iron and steel began to replace timber.

The rapid increase in the size and power of ships was promoted by the industrial revolution. The industrial countries produced great quantities of goods which were carried to all parts of the world by ships. On their return voyages, the ships brought either raw materials such as cotton, metals, timber for the factories, or grain and foodstuffs for the growing population.

During the same period, a great deal was done to improve ports, and that permitted larger ships to use them and to make loading and unloading faster.

Improvements introduced in the 20th century included the smoother and more efficient type of engines called steam turbines and the use of oil fuel instead of coal. Between 1910 and 1920 the diesel engine began to be introduced in ships. These diesel-engined ships are called motor ships. The largest ships, however, are still generally driven by steam turbines. In the late 1950s a few ships were being built which were equipped with nuclear reactors for producing steam.

In 1957 the world's first atomic ice-breaker was launched in Leningrad. This atomic ice-breaker is equipped with an atomic engine owing to which her operating on negligible quantities of nuclear fuel is possible. In spite of the capacity of her engine being 44,000 h.p., it will need only a few grams of atomic fuel a week.

The atomic ice-breaker has three nuclear reactors. The operation of the nuclear reactor is accompanied by powerful radiation. Therefore, the ice-breaker is equipped with reliable means of protection.

In the early XXI century the international shipping industry carries about 90 % of global trade by weight. Shipping also provides important ferry and passenger services. In 2005 globally there were approximately 42,200 registered ships with a combined tonnage of nearly 600 million gross tons. Of these more than 20,000 were general cargo vessels, 6,100 bulk carriers, 3,200 container vessels, 11,300 tankers, and nearly 5,700 passenger ships.

The shipping industry is regulated at several levels — most notably at the global level by the United Nation’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) that oversees safety and environmental matters and the International Labor Organization (ILO) that focuses on labor standards in the shipping industry. National governments control movements within territorial waters, register vessels, and regulate the nature of the services that can be used for their trading activities. Shipping is also regulated by local governments that often own and control ports that form the terminals for shipping operations.

COMPREHENSION CHECK