ABSTRACT
There is nothing particularly new about bulk shipping. The idea of cutting transport costs by carrying shiploads of cargo in ships designed for efficient stowage and cargo handling has been around for centuries. Two thousand years ago Rome imported more than 30 million bushels of grain a year from the grainlands of northern Africa, Sicily and Egypt, 1 and to carry this trade a fleet of special grain ships was built. The Dutch 'fly boats', the nineteenth century tea clippers and even the slave ships of the eighteenth century are all examples.
