May 13 2024 8 mins
The origin and meaning of a common maritime industry term: bunkering
Folks familiar with the maritime industry use this word a lot: "bunker" or "bunkering" or even "bunkers."
It's not a word whose meaning you can easily figure out just by hearing it, but it refers to the fuel ships use and the process of filling up a ship's tanks so she has fuel to travel at sea.
Today we'll talk about bunker and bunkering, and exactly what those terms mean. And how this important maritime function came to be named in such an apparently nonintuitive way.