Deadweight tonnageFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaNot to be confused with vesseldisplacement.

The more heavily loaded a ship is, the lower it sits in the water. Maximum DWT is the amount of weight a ship can carry without riding dangerously low in the water.

Scale for a 6,000 tonne DWT ship.Deadweight tonnage(also known asdeadweight; abbreviated toDWT,D.W.T.,d.w.t., ordwt) is a measure of how muchweighta ship iscarryingor can safely carry;[1][2][3]it does not include the weight of the ship. DWT is the sum of the weights ofcargo, fuel,fresh water,ballast water, provisions, passengers, andcrew.[1]DWT is often used to specify a ship's maximum permissible deadweight (i.e. when it is fully loaded so that itsPlimsoll lineis at water level), although it may also denote the actual DWT of a ship not loaded to capacity.Contents[hide] 1Definition 2See also 3Notes 4ReferencesDefinition[edit]Deadweight tonnage is a measure of a vessel's capacity in weight, and does not include the weight of the ship. It should not be confused withdisplacement, which includes the ship's weight measured in tons of water displaced, nor other volume or capacity measures such asgross tonnageornet tonnage(or their more archaic formsgross register tonnageornet register tonnage).Deadweight tonnage was historically expressed inlong tons[note 1]but is now usually given internationally intonnes(metric tons).[4]In modern international shipping conventions such as theInternational Convention for the Safety of Life at Seaand theInternational Convention for the Prevention of Pollution From Ships, deadweight is explicitly defined as the difference in tonnes between the displacement of a ship in water of aspecific gravityof 1.025 (corresponding to average density ofsea water) at thedraftcorresponding to the assignedsummer freeboardand thelight displacement(lightweight) of the ship.[5][6]See also[edit]