Lift-on/lift-off or LoLo

ship A ship is a large watercraft that travels the world's oceans and other sufficiently deep waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense, research, and fishing. Ships are generally distinguished ...

s are

cargo ship A cargo ship or freighter is a merchant ship that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year, handling the bulk of international trade. Cargo ships are usu ...

s with on-board cranes to load and unload cargo. While the common abbreviation of ''lift-on/lift-off'' is ''LoLo'', it is sometimes abbreviated as ''LOLO'', ''LO/LO'' or ''Lo/Lo''. Ships with cranes or other cargo handling equipment on-board are also termed ''geared'' vessels. As

container ship A container ship (also called boxship or spelled containership) is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermoda ...

s usually have no on-board cranes or other mechanism to load or unload their cargo, they are therefore dependent on dockside

container crane A container crane (also container handling gantry crane or ship-to-shore crane) is a type of large dockside gantry crane found at container terminals for loading and unloading intermodal containers from container ships. Container cranes consis ...

s to load and unload. However lift-on/lift-off vessels can load and unload their own cargo unassisted. Lift-on/lift-off vessels can operate out of docks with no dockside cargo handling equipment. "In May 2010 the Office of Naval Research (ONR) conducted a ... at-sea demonstration of their Large Vessel Interface Lift-on/Lift-off (LVI Lo/Lo) crane system in sea state 3 conditions. The LVI Lo/Lo demonstrator is an advanced motion-compensated, at-sea cargo transfer system. The embedded technologies combine to provide tagline free six degrees-of-freedom control of the payload."Large Vessel Interface Lift-on/Lift-off (LVI Lo/Lo) crane system
youtube.com, 21 October 2010, retrieved 20 December 2017. – Video (2:30). @1:40/2:30 the compensation movement is shown in fast motion.

References

Ship types {{ship-stub