He could easily have taken the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower aboard. But his cargo is $ 195 million worth of oil. He outlived several owners and is already the fourth name. He was hit with rockets and cut in half. And yet - for more than 20 years, it remains the largest ship on the planet.
The history of this vessel began in Japan in 1976 (some sources for some reason indicate 1975) at the shipyards of Sumitomo Heavy Industries.
Then our hero was born under the modest serial number "1016" and was handed over to a certain Greek ship owner, who gave the tanker its first real name "Seawise Giant".
Interestingly, the tanker was not that big then. Nearly. Its carrying capacity was 480 thousand tons (typical modern supertankers hold 280 thousand tons).
He sailed for three years, and very soon the ship was sold to a new owner, who ordered an increase. Japanese shipbuilders cut and ramped up the vessel, which took a long time.
Finally, in 1981, the tanker was ready for service again. The welded-in additional sections of the hull increased its deadweight (capacity) to 564,763 tons of oil, otherwise - up to 658,362 cubic meters.
One of the latest shots from Knock Nevis. For a petroleum titanium scale, note the offshore bulk carrier seen in the background on the left (photo from supertankers.topcities.com).
By the way, this oil is separated from the sea by only one steel side 3.5 centimeters thick.
The total displacement of the monster after the reconstruction reached 825 thousand 614 tons, which, along with its size, made it the largest ship ever to sail on Earth.
People on its deck can give some idea of \u200b\u200bthe scale of the monster (photo from dxman.com).
Dimensions. This must be imagined, because there are no such suitable images that would allow one to feel the scale of the supertanker.
Its length is 458.45 meters, width is 68.86 meters (the length of other sea vessels is less), draft under load is 24.61 meters.
Not only the Titanic, but also the modern cruise giants surpassing the Titanic in all dimensions are simply not impressive against the background of this tanker. Turbines with a capacity of 50 thousand horsepower accelerate the tanker at full load to 13 knots (approximately 24 kilometers per hour).
Interestingly, the crew of the ship is only 40 people.
To deliver a supertanker to the terminal, you need several powerful tugs at once (photo from supertankers.topcities.com).
Obviously, a tanker of this size provides an opportunity to deliver black gold to its destination very economically (per ton of oil).
True, here's the bad luck - with a full load, this tanker cannot pass through the English Channel, the Suez and Panama Canals, as well as moor in most major ports in the world.
It would seem that by its geometrical dimensions it could do this trick. But here safety plays a big role.
A million-ton tanker at full speed is a terrible force (photo from supertankers.topcities.com).
Think about it: the giant's stopping distance is 10.2 kilometers, and the turning circle exceeds 3.7 kilometers! So, among other ships scurrying in these waters, this supertanker is like an elephant in a china shop.
When a tanker needs to be brought to an oil terminal, they take it in tow and pull it very, very slowly. It is easy to imagine what can happen if an error in maneuvering a vessel weighing almost a million tons can happen.
During its life, the supergiant tanker changed several owners and changed its name more than once - first to Happy Giant, then to Jahre Viking.
Comparison of the largest ships of the planet (in length and gross register tons (generalized characteristic of geometric dimensions). It is a pity that most of our hero megatanker (he was drawn last) is hidden under water (illustration from the site dxman.com).
This year, the tanker went to dry docks in Dubai, received new equipment and turned into a so-called "floating storage unit" (Floating Storage and Offloading unit) for oil. The ship was renamed Knock Nevis. The ship is owned by the Norwegians and operates in the waters of Qatar.
The history of "Titanic" did not interrupt man's dream of majesty and grandeur. The huge courts of our time are already breaking our framework of thinking. The largest ship in the world is called the 450-meter supertanker "Knock Nevis". It is about him that will be discussed.
Help about the largest ship in the world
... Carrying capacity - 565 thousand tons... Length - 458.45 m
... Width - 68.86 m
... At maximum load, it settles to 24.611 m
... Steam turbine power - 50,000 horsepower
... Speed \u200b\u200b- 16 knots (30 km / h)
... Braking distance - about 10 km
... Crew - 40 people
The largest ship in the world is the Knock Nevis supertanker. Photo: Gérard Né / aukevisser.nl
... Due to its impressive size, the tanker could not navigate through the Suez, Panama Canals, as well as the English Channel. In addition, not every port is capable of mooring a ship of this size.... To turn around, the ship needs at least 3.7 kilometers of space.
... Compared to this supertanker, the famous "Titanic" is quite small - "Knock Nevis" is 189 m longer than it.
... In technical circles, "Knock Nevis" has been dubbed ULCC (Ultra Giant Raw Material Carrier).
... The ship changed its name five times: "Seawise Giant", "Happy Giant", "Jahre Viking", "Knock Nevis", "Mont". However, the common name is "Knock Nevis".
... Despite the size problems, transporting oil in such huge quantities has proven to be more cost-effective than transporting it in conventional tankers.
... The total cost of all oil transported by the ship is about $ 200 million
... During the repair, the shipyard workers needed to replace 3,700 tons of damaged skin.
... It is noteworthy that 565 thousand tons of transported oil are separated from the sea by only 3.5 centimeters of steel (board thickness).
... It took a whole year to dispose of the ship.
... The 36 tonne Knock Nevis anchor was preserved and sent as an exhibit to the Hong Kong Maritime Museum.
The largest ship in the world "Knock Nevis". Photo: Gérard Né / aukevisser.nl
The history of the largest ship in the world
Knock Nevis was built by a Japanese company (Built by a Japanese company) Sumitomo Heavy Industries in 1979. But even before the ship went to sea, its owner went bankrupt.
A few years later, the new owner ordered an increase in the ship. And so the rather impressive carrying capacity of 480,000 tons (for comparison, modern tankers can handle 280,000 tons) has been increased. For this, the tanker was cut in half and cargo compartments were added. So "Knock Nevis" was able to transport 565,000 tons of cargo and became out of competition.
In 1981, the tanker was ready. First, he transported oil from the Middle East to the shores of the United States.
In 1986, during the Iran-Iraq war, he carried out a task of reloading and storing Iranian oil. However, the tanker was not spared the evil fate of the war: when the ship was in the waters of the Persian Gulf, an Iraqi fighter fired at it, and "Knock Nevis" received significant damage.
After the war, the tanker was bought by a Norwegian company. It was towed to the Keppel shipyard in Singapore for repairs.
The largest ship in the world is the Knock Nevis supertanker. Photo: Roland Grard / aukevisser.nl
In 2004, the largest ship in the world was converted into a floating oil convoy. The reason for this was the law prohibiting the transportation of oil by single-hull tankers.
The supertanker ended his life in 2010 off the coast of the Indian city of Alange, where it was disposed of.
"Knock Nevis" went down in history not only as the largest ship in the world, but also as the largest self-propelled man-made object that was ever built.
The tanker best known by the name Knok Nevis, is an the largest industrial shipthat was ever built by man. During its difficult existence, it managed to change its name, size, and scope several times.
As soon as it was not called! Over the years, the tanker was Seawise giant, Jahre viking, Happy giant, Knock nevis and Mont... And its history began in 1974, almost 40 years ago. At this time, Japanese shipyards received an order to build the largest tanker in the world... It took the companies 5 years to make the dream of the Greek shipowner a reality: in 1979, a giant tanker, striking in its size, was launched.
But the initiator of the order did not find this enough, and he insisted on increasing the size of the ship. As a result, the vessel was cut in half, and additional sections were inserted into the middle. At that time, the largest tanker on earth was named Seawise Giant.
As a result, its enormous size can only be amazed: the length of the ship was 458.45 meters, width - 68.86 meters. And at one time the vessel could carry 564.8 thousand tons of cargo. At the same time, the weight of the tanker Knock Nevis itself was 81.9 thousand tons, and if you walk through its individual components, the weight of the ship's propeller was 50 tons, and the weight of the rudder reached 230 tons.
But the further "biography" of the tanker showed that such impressive dimensions became not only the advantage of the vessel, but also its significant disadvantage. It is difficult to imagine, but when fully loaded, Knok Nevis, it sank about 30 meters under the water, which is the size, for comparison, of a nine-story building.
It is not surprising that such a serious draft did not allow the tanker to ply the Panama or Suez Canals. At the same time, the Panama Canal did not suit Knock Nevis in terms of width and length, because the tanker was 1.5 times larger than the maximum allowable size of locks.
It is also interesting that the described vessel could reach speeds of up to 30 km / h, but when braking, it had to swim another 9 kilometers to a full stop. And even the turn of the ship with such a gigantic size was not an easy matter: without a tug, the tanker turned with a radius of 3.2 kilometers.
In 1981, after the final increase in size, Knock Nevis finally began to bring profit to its owners. His "job" was the transportation of oil from the Middle East to the United States. However, at that time the Iran-Iraq war was raging, which made its own adjustments to the life of the ship.
Since 1986, the ship began to be used as a huge floating terminal for the movement and storage of Iranian oil, but in 1988 an Iranian fighter jet attacked Knock Nevis and inflicted significant damage on it, as a result of which the vessel lost all carrying oil.
It should be noted that the thickness of the sides of the huge tanker was only 3.5 centimeters. Therefore, when a hole occurred, thousands of tons of oil freely entered the surrounding marine world. As a result, significant damage was caused to the nature of the earth, and the tanker was out of order for three years.
During the repair, the tanker was replaced by 3.7 thousand tons of damaged steel. Also at this time, the ship was given a new official name - Happy Giant. But even before the completion of the repair work (carried out, by the way, in Singapore), the tanker was sold for $ 39 million to the Norwegian company and left the restoration docks under the name of Jahre Viking.
The next significant changes in the life of the largest industrial ship took place in 2004. In the United States and Europe, legislation was passed banning the use of thin-walled tankers for the transport of oil. Thus, Knok Nevis was left without work. It was then that the Jahre Viking tanker was renamed Knock Nevis, and began to be used as a floating oil storage facility.
In 2009, the ship changes its owner, which once again gives it a new name - Mont. Then the tanker embarks on its final journey: to India, to Alang, which is the world famous ship graveyard. There, within a few months, the ship is cut into pieces and remelted.
Today, the only attribute that remains from the world's largest industrial ship is its anchor, which weighs 36 tons. It is now kept in the Hong Kong Maritime Museum.
| Knock nevis | |
|---|---|
| Jahre Viking-04 | |
| Flag | Norway Norway |
| Class and type of vessel | Tanker |
| Home port | Singapore Singapore |
| IMO number | |
| Owner | Amber Development (2009–2010) First Olsen Tankers Pte. (2004–2009) Loki Stream AS (1991–2004) |
| Manufacturer | Sumitomo H.I. Ltd. |
| Commissioned | 1976 |
| Withdrawn from the fleet | 04.01.2010 |
| Status | dismantled for scrap in the city of Alang (India) |
| Main characteristics | |
| Displacement | 657 018 |
| Length | 458.45 m |
| Width | 68.86 m |
| Board height | 29.80 m |
| Deadweight | 564 763 tons |
| Engines | Turbines with a total capacity of 50,000 hp from. |
| Travel speed | 13 knots |
| Crew | 40 people |
| Images at Wikimedia Commons | |
Built in 1976, rebuilt in 1979, in recent years it was used as a floating oil storage, then delivered to Alang (India), where it was disposed of in 2010.
Specifications
After the restructuring of the supertanker Seawise giant became the largest ship on Earth. The precipitation made it impossible for him to pass through the Suez and Panama Canals and across the English Channel.
The vessel was intended and used to transport crude oil from the Middle East to Seawise Giant purchased by the Norwegian company Norman International, most likely for reasons of prestige, raised and renamed Happy giant... After the ascent, in August 1988, he raised the Norwegian flag and was towed to Singapore, where he underwent refurbishment at the Keppel Company shipyard. In particular, about 3.7 thousand tons of hull structures were replaced. Prior to commissioning in October 1991, ULCC was sold to the Norwegian shipping company Loki Stream AS, owned by Jørgen Jahre, for US $ 39 million and left the shipyard under a new name. Jahre viking.
Following the adoption of laws prohibiting entry of tankers without double hulls at ports in the United States and Europe in 2004, Jahre viking once again changed the owner and the name. In March of the same year, it was bought by the Norwegian company First Olsen Tankers Pte. Ltd. and renamed to Knock nevis... From that moment on, his career as a transport ship ended. In Dubai, the ULCC has been converted into a Floating Production Storage & Offloading (FPSO) crude oil storage tanker and anchored in the Al Shaheed offshore oil field off the coast of Qatar.
By 2010, the expiration date approached Knock nevis... It was sold to Amber Development Corporation for recycling. The new owner renamed Knock nevis in Mont and raised the Sierra Leone flag on it. In December 2009, the tanker made its last voyage to the shores of India.
January 4, 2010 Mont washed ashore near the Indian city of Alang (Gujarat state), where its hull was cut into metal for a year.
One of the giant's 36-ton anchors has been preserved and is now on display at the Hong Kong Maritime Museum.
Knock Nevis is the largest tanker in the world, also known as Jahre Viking, Happy Giant, Seawise Giant and Mont. The oil tanker was designed and built by the Japanese in 1974-1975, long the largest ship ever built. In 2010, the "sea giant" was decommissioned and subsequently dismantled for scrap.
Record holder
The tanker Knock Nevis was the largest vessel with a length of 458 meters, built in the 20th century. It had a volume of 260,851 registered tons (RT), which corresponds to 738,208.3 m 3. Only in 2013, the Prelude FLNG supertanker was manufactured in South Korea, whose length exceeded the previous record holder by 30 meters. However, in terms of displacement, it significantly loses to the giant from Japan (600,000 tons against 657,000).
This ship is so large that the deck can accommodate four football fields. Its stopping distance is about 3.5 miles (5.6 km), and when fully loaded, the draft in the water reaches 80 feet (over 24 meters).
After the disastrous Exxon Valdez tanker in Alaska waters in 1989, the US government decided to use double-bottomed vessels to transport oil products. Ships that do not meet these requirements are not allowed into US territorial waters. This initiative was supported by many countries. Manufacturing hulls of this design is very difficult from a technical point of view, so some of the record characteristics of the Knock Nevis tanker will not be beaten for a long time.
In the foreseeable future, vessels of the "floating city" type may exceed the tonnage of the Japanese heavyweight. Some of the projects of the city ships are already entering the implementation stage, but their practical implementation will take years and billions of dollars in investments.
Comparative data of the tanker Knock Nevis
The ship, designed by the engineers of the Land of the Rising Sun, is one of the largest ships in the history of civilization. Even the mighty aircraft carriers do not seem so intimidating against its background. Comparative characteristics among his fellow supertankers:
- Knock Nevis (1975-2010): displacement - 657,018 tons, volume - 260,851 RT, length - 458.5 m.
- Prelude FLNG (2013): displacement - 600,000 tons, volume - 300,000 RT, length - 488 m.
- Pierre Guillaumat (1977-1983): displacement - 555,051 tons, volume - 274,838 RT, length - 414 m.
- Prairial (1979-2003): displacement - 554 974 tons, volume - 274 826 RT, length - 414 m.
- Battilus and Bellamya (1976-1986): displacement - 553 662 tons, volume - 273 550 RT, length - 414 m.
- Esso Atlantic and Esso Pacific (1977-2002): displacement - 516,000 tons, volume - 259,532 RT, length - 406 m.
The newest TI class tankers, produced since 2002, are slightly inferior in characteristics to the "old guard". Their displacement is "only" 509,484 tons, volume - 234,006 RT, length - 380 m. However, it is not always advisable to build larger vessels, since they will not be able to pass through the English Channel, the Suez and Panama Canals.
Creature
The construction of the Knock Nevis tanker began in 1974 by the Japanese company Sumitomo Heavy Industries in Osaka for the Greek ship magnate Aristotle Onassis. However, due to the oil embargo in 1970, the billionaire was declared bankrupt even before the ship was built.
The rights to the giant ship were bought by the Hong Kong shipowner Tang. He instructed the builders to increase its length and increase the carrying capacity from 480,000 to 564,763 tons. Since the tanker was actually already assembled, it was necessary to cut the hull in half and weld in an additional section. Japanese specialists have brilliantly coped with a task that has no analogues. After launching in 1979, the vessel was named Seawise Giant.
Specifications:
- Ship type - oil tanker.
- Dimensions (length, width) - 458.45 / 68.86 m.
- The height of the boards above the waterline at maximum load is 24.6 m.
- Displacement - 657,018.5 tons.
- Deadweight (full carrying capacity including cargo, crew, food and water supplies) - 564 763 tons.
- Power plant capacity - 50,000 liters. from.
- Cruising speed - 30 km / h (16 knots).
- The number of crew members is 40 people.
- The braking distance is 5.6 km.
Start of operation
Initially, the Knock Nevis tanker delivered oil from the fields of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean in the United States. He was later transferred to the Persian Gulf to export oil from Iran. In the 1980s, war broke out between neighbors Iran and Iraq. In 1986, the ship was attacked by Iraqi aircraft while moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Several Exocet-class missiles hit the ship. The tanker suffered enormous damage during the attack. Ultimately, he sank in the shallow waters of Hark Island.
Revival
It would seem that the fate of the "Sea Wise Giant" (Seawise Giant) was a foregone conclusion. However, a few months after the end of the Iranian-Iraqi war, in August 1988, Norman International bought out the resting seabed tanker. The specialists managed to lift it and tow it to the Keppel shipyard in Singapore. The ship was rebuilt and renamed Happy Giant in honor of the miraculous escape.
Experts note that such a costly operation to lift and repair the supertanker was not caused by economic feasibility, but by the prestige of owning the world's largest ship. By the way, almost all record-breaking supertankers built in the 70s were disposed of by the early 2000s. The oil tanker outlived his “colleagues” by a good ten years.
Further destiny
In 1999, a deal was made to transfer the tanker Knock Nevis to Norway. In March 2004, she was shipped by new owner (First Olsen Tankers) to Dubai dry docks, where the vessel was converted into a floating oil storage and offloading terminal. Under the name of Nok Nevis, he began working in the Al Shaheen field in the waters of Qatar.
In December 2009, the Knock Nevis tanker was sold to Indian refiners for disposal. The ship sailed to the place of the last mooring under the name Mont. Upon arrival, the vessel was deliberately run aground off the coast of the Indian state of Gujarat in the water area of \u200b\u200bthe port of Alang. On January 4, 2010, the last official photograph of Knock Nevis was taken, after which the dismantling of the legend of the seas began.
As a reminder of the giant supertanker's existence, its 36-ton anchor is on display as a valuable exhibit at the Maritime Museum in Hong Kong, People's Republic of China.
