The Merchant Navy is the collective name given to British civilian ships and the officers and ratings that man them. Merchant Navy vessels mostly fly the Red Ensign and the ships and ship's companies'
Badge of British Merchant Navy
Members of the ship's company of HMS Castle Harbour, assigned to the Royal Naval Dockyard as the Examination Service vessel (that inspected merchant ships). Crew members included seafarers from the Merchant Navy. HMS Castle Harbour would later be sunk by a German submarine while being delivered to the Mediterranean by a Merchant Navy crew
Second World War poster highlighting wartime dangers that the Merchant Navy faced
Sailors on board the merchant ship Empire Unity during World War II
Flag of convenience
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Flag of convenience refers to a business practice whereby a ship's owners register a merchant ship in a ship register of a country other than that of the ship's owners, and the ship flies the civil en
Merchant Navy (United Kingdom)
…since the mid-20th century, the number of shipowners, ships, officers and crew have declined dramatically, as a result of globalisation and the rise of flags of convenience. As of 2023, the British Merchant Navy numbered 1,054 ships. The Merchant Navy has been in existence for a significant period in English and British…
The sinking of Amoco Cadiz led to concerted ship inspections by port states.
The engineers of the Seamen's Act, from left to right, maritime labor leader Andrew Furuseth, Senator Robert La Follette, and muckraker Lincoln Steffens, circa 1915
The drilling platform Deepwater Horizon flew a Marshallese flag of convenience.