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Handysize vs Handymax vs Supramax vs Ultramax

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Handysize, Handymax, Supramax and Ultramax are the four names for geared bulk carriers, the ships that carry their own cranes. From smallest to largest they run from about 20,000 to about 66,000 deadweight tonnes. They are one family: the same idea built bigger four times. What sets them apart from the larger classes is the gear, and what sets them apart from each other is how much they lift and how deep they sit.

The four classes side by side

The ranges and gear below are the Baltic Exchange's own descriptions, read from its guide to vessel types on 12 October 2026. Deadweight (dwt) is the weight a ship can carry, including cargo, fuel and stores.

ClassDeadweightHolds and hatchesCargo gear
HandysizeAbout 20,000 to 35,000Four or fiveCranes of 25 to 35 tonnes
HandymaxAbout 36,000 to 49,000FiveCranes of 25 to 35 tonnes
SupramaxAbout 50,000 to 66,000, listed togetherFive on the benchmark shipsCranes of 25 to 40 tonnes, usually with their own grabs
Ultramax

The Baltic lists Supramax and Ultramax as one line. The trade splits them by size and age of design. In common usage a Supramax is the older ship of roughly 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes, and an Ultramax is the newer design above it. No rule fixes the point where one becomes the other.

The Baltic says of all these names that they "evolve quickly and they are not precisely defined", and that its ranges are "indicative only". Treat every edge in the table as soft.

The benchmark ship for each class

A range says where a class sits. A benchmark ship shows what one looks like. The Baltic Exchange publishes a standard ship for each freight index, and brokers price real ships against it. These are the two geared benchmarks, read from the Baltic's dry market pages on 12 October 2026.

ItemBaltic Handysize benchmarkBaltic Supramax benchmark
Deadweight38,200 mt63,500 mt
Draft, summer salt water10.538 m13.418 m
Length overall180 m199.98 m
Beam29.8 m32.24 m
Grain capacity47,125 cubic metres80,500 cubic metres
Bale capacity45,300 cubic metres76,200 cubic metres
Holds and hatches5 and 55 and 5
Cranes4 of 30 tonnes4 of 30 tonnes, with 4 grabs of 12 cubic metres
Tonnes per centimetre4961.4
Maximum age15 years15 years
38,200 and 63,500

Both benchmarks sit outside the plain meaning of their names. The Baltic's Handysize ship, at 38,200 tonnes, falls inside the range its own guide gives for Handymax. Its Supramax ship, at 63,500 tonnes, is what most of the market calls an Ultramax. The index names stayed and the ships under them grew.

The same drift shows in the Baltic's sale and purchase assessments. The class between Handysize and Panamax is listed there as "Superhandy (Tess 58 type)", after a 58,000 tonne design. The Baltic's 2017 circular on that benchmark gives the ship as 58,328 dwt on a draft of 12.80 metres, 189.99 metres long, with the same four 30 tonne cranes and 12 cubic metre grabs. So the freight index for this slot now describes a ship about 5,000 tonnes larger than the one its sale and purchase assessment still names.

What the gear is for

Gear means the ship's own cranes. A geared ship can load and discharge at a berth with no shore cranes, at an anchorage into barges, or at a port where the shore equipment is slow or broken. A gearless ship cannot.

That one fact is why these classes exist. Above about 66,000 tonnes the Baltic describes bulk carriers as usually gearless, and they trade between terminals that have their own loaders and unloaders. Below it, the ship brings the equipment with it, and the list of ports it can serve is far longer.

Two details of the gear matter in a fixture (an agreed charter deal):

Draft and beam: where each class can go

The step from Handysize to Supramax is nearly three metres of draft on the benchmark ships: 10.538 metres against 13.418. Draft is how deep the ship sits when loaded. Many river ports, small terminals and older harbours have less water than a loaded Supramax needs, which is the standing reason charterers still ask for a Handysize.

Beam, the width, changes less. The Supramax benchmark is 32.24 metres wide. That is the Panamax beam: the Panama Canal Authority sets the limit for the original locks at 32.31 metres. So an Ultramax is a short, geared ship built to the same width as a Panamax or Kamsarmax. The Handysize benchmark, at 29.8 metres, is narrower and fits more berths and locks.

A draft limit does not rule a bigger ship out. It makes the ship load less. Loadable quantity shows how to turn a port's draft into tonnes, using the tonnes per centimetre figure in the table above.

Typical cargoes and trades

The Baltic Exchange guide to key trades states the general rule: the larger the ship, the fewer commodities it commonly loads. The largest ships carry mostly iron ore and coal. The Handysize to Supramax sizes carry those cargoes too, and are "also often employed in carrying cargoes such as steel products, scrap and sugar". Fertilisers, salt, sulphur, petcoke and alumina move in these sizes as well.

ClassWhat it is chosen forExample Baltic index routes
Handysize Smaller parcels, shallow or restricted ports, berths with no shore cranes Skaw-Passero to Rio de Janeiro-Recalada. Skaw-Passero to Boston-Galveston
Handymax The same work with a larger parcel, where the water allows No index of its own today
Supramax and Ultramax Larger parcels of grain, coal, steel, fertiliser and other minor bulks, to ports that need a geared ship US Gulf to China-south Japan. North China, one Australian or Pacific round voyage

Skaw-Passero is the trade's name for the coast of Europe from the north of Denmark to the south of Sicily. Rio de Janeiro-Recalada is the east coast of South America from Rio to the River Plate.

Why the names keep moving

Each name was coined for the ships of its day, and each new design was a little bigger than the last. Handymax was the large handy ship. Supramax was the design above it. Ultramax was the design above that. As older ships are scrapped, the smaller meaning of each name fades and the label slides up.

The practical result is that two lists can file the same ship differently:

So do not search or offer by class name alone. Use the deadweight, the draft, the gear and the cubic capacity. Vessel particulars explains each line of a ship's description, and matching cargo to tonnage gives the order to check them in. Dry bulk vessel sizes places these four among the larger classes.

When two sizes can both do the voyage, the choice is about earnings per day. Run the cargo at each ship's intake in the free TCE calculator to compare them.

References

Dry bulk vessel sizesHandysize to Capesize: where the deadweight bands sit, why their edges are trade habits, and how many ships fall in each. Kamsarmax vs PanamaxSame beam, longer hull, deeper draft. Where the two names come from, what each ship can carry, and which limits still bind. Matching a cargo to a shipOne cargo, five open ships and one real candidate. Which checks are simple arithmetic, which are judgement, and why the shortlist is short. Reading a ship's particularsWhat each figure on a vessel description limits, why GRT measures volume, and why draught rules a ship out long before deadweight does.

Neptune Atlas

Neptune Atlas holds the world merchant fleet with deadweight, dimensions and cargo gear on each ship, and searches it against the positions a desk has on file. A search can cross a band edge on purpose, so a 39,000 tonne ship is not lost because one list calls it a Handysize and another a Handymax. Every paid plan starts with 7 free days. A card is needed to start them, and cancelling before they end costs nothing.

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