 The Pride of Burgundy, a P&O Ferries car ferry on the Dover-Calais route A ferry is a boat or a ship carrying passengers, and possibly their vehicles, on a relatively short-distance, regularly-scheduled service.
Ferries form an important part of the public transport systems of many waterside cities, allowing direct transit between points at a capital cost much lower than bridges or tunnels.
A foot-passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, is sometimes called a waterbus or water taxi.
Notable ferry services
Longer-run ferries connect many coastal islands with the mainland. Perhaps the most notable ferry route of this sort is the one across the English Channel connecting Great Britain with the rest of Europe (mainly through the French ports, such as Calais, Cherbourg, Le Havre), but there are many others. Large ferries also sail in Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden. In many ways, these are like cruise ships, but they can also carry hundreds of cars in their car decks. In Britain, car-carrying ferries are sometimes referred to as RORO - "roll-on, roll-off" - for the ease by which vehicles can board and leave. These RORO designs have certain compromises which impair their seaworthiness.
In Australia, three Spirit of Tasmania ferries carry passengers and vehicles 300km across Bass Strait, which separates Tasmania from the Australian mainland. These run overnight but also include additional day crossings in peak time. All three ferries are based in the northern Tasmanian port city of Devonport; two ferries travel the route to Melbourne, Victoria, and the third to Sydney, New South Wales.
In Hong Kong, Star Ferry and First Ferry.
In British Columbia,Canada, there is B.C. Ferries
Types of ferries
 The Lower Kingswear to Dartmouth ferry, Devon, England. The pontoon carries eight cars and is towed across the River Dart by a small tug. Only two ropes connect the tug to the pontoon. A large variety of watercraft designs have been used as ferries, depending on the length of the route, the passenger or vehicle capacity required, speed requirements and the water conditions the craft must deal with. Hydrofoils have been used with advantages of higher cruising speeds on popular ferry routes, succeeding hovercraft on the route mentioned above where the ferries now compete against the Le Shuttle and Eurostar trains that use the Channel Tunnel. Hydrofoils also proved a practical, fast and relatively economical solution in the Canary Islands - their replacement by high-speed car ferries is seen by critics as a retrograde step given that the new vessels use much more fuel and foster the inappropriate use of cars 1 (http://www.atan.org/en/costas/fast/milenium.htm) in an archipeligo already suffering from the impact of mass tourism. Arguably, retaining hydrofoil ferries would have been a better, more environmentally-sensitive solution to the Canary Islands' transport needs. Very short distances may be operated by a cable ferry, where the ferry is propelled and steered by cables connected to each shore. Sometimes the cable ferry is human powered by someone on the boat. Reaction ferries are cable ferries that use the perpendicular force of the current as a source of power. Chain ferries may be used in fast-flowing rivers across short distances.
Free ferries operate in some parts of the world, such as at Woolwich in London, England (across the River Thames) and in Amsterdam, Netherlands (across the IJ waterway).
Ferry boats often dock at specialized facilities designed to accurately and quickly position the boat for loading and unloading, called a ferry slip. If the ferry transports road vehicles or railcars there will usually be an adjustable ramp called an apron that is part of the slip. In other cases, the apron ramp will be a part of the ferry itself, acting as a wave guard when elevated and lowered to meet a fixed ramp at the terminus - a road segment that extends partially underwater.
First, shortest, largest
On October 11, 1811 inventor John Stevens' ship the Juliana, began operation as the first steam-powered ferry (service was between New York, New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey).
Reputedly, the world's shortest regular ferry route runs 121 metres across a shipping channel, connecting Toronto City Centre Airport to the mainland. The ferry between Bygdøy and Lille Herbern in Oslo is significantly shorter, but operates only between April and October.
The oldest ferry service in continuous operation may be the Sundbåt ("Sound/Strait Boat") shuttle in Kristiansund. Started in 1876, the small motor ferry crosses the harbour from Kirklandet to Innlandet, then Nordlandet, Gomalandet, and back to Kirklandet, repeating the round trip in half-hour intervals morning to evening on weekdays.
Two of the world's largest ferry systems are located in the Strait of Georgia, British Columbia, Canada, and Puget Sound, Washington, United States of America. Each system contains at least 25 ferries, but the two have different styles and operating procedures.
Ferries in Antiquity
Crossing a river as a metaphor for transition is very old. The profession of the ferryman is embodied in Greek mythology as Charon.
Speculation that a pair of oxen propelled a ship having a water wheel can be found in 4th century Roman literature Anonymus De Rebus Bellicis. Though impractical, there is no reason why it could not work and such a ferry, modified by using horses, was used in Lake Champlain in 19th century America. See, When Horses Walked on Water: Horse-Powered Ferries in Nineteenth-Century America" (Smithsonian Institution Press;Kevin Crisman, co-authored with Arthur Cohn, Executive Director of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum).
See also
External links
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