Introduction

Abstract

Ships and the management of ships represent one of man’s oldest economic enterprises. There is no time in recorded history when man was not using watercraft of some sort to provide communication, and with communication inevitably came trade. Trade began first between tribes, rapidly extending to nations over routes that were pioneered before the dawn of history. During the great Age of Exploration, the epochal voyages of Columbus, Magellan, Vasco da Gama, and the illustrious company of “gentlemen adventurers” established the principle that man could plan where he would market his goods, and could build the ships needed to transport those goods.