Seawise Giant(The Longest Ship)

Seawise Giant, later the Happy Giant, Jahre Viking, and Knock Nevis, was a ULCC supertanker and the longest ship ever built, and possessed the greatest deadweight tonnage ever recorded. Fully laden, her displacement was 657,019 tonnes (646,642 LT; 724,239 ST), the heaviest ship of any kind, and with a draft of 24.6 m (81 ft), she was incapable of navigating the English Channel, the Suez Canal or the Panama Canal. Overall, she was generally considered the largest ship ever built. Additionally, she is considered to be the largest mobile man made object ever built. She was last used as a floating storage and offloading unit (FSO) moored off the coast of Qatar in the Persian Gulf at the Al Shaheen Oil Field.

The vessel was sold to Indian ship breakers, and renamed Mont for her final journey in December 2009. After clearing Indian customs, she was sailed to, and intentionally beached at Alang, Gujarat, India for demolition.

Seawise Giant was built in 1979 by Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd. at their Oppama shipyard in Yokosuka, Kanagawa, Japan, and christened Oppama when the Greek owner failed to take delivery.

The shipyard exercised its right to sell the vessel and a deal was brokered with Hong Kong Orient Overseas Container Line founder C. Y. Tung to lengthen the ship by several metres and add 87,000 metric tons of cargo capacity through jumboisation. Two years later she was relaunched as Seawise Giant.

After the refit, the ship had a capacity of 564,763 metric tons deadweight (DWT), a length overall of 458.45 metres (1,504.1 ft) and a draft of 24.611 metres (80.74 ft). She had 46 tanks, 31,541 square metres (339,500 sq ft) of deck space, and drew too much water to pass through the English Channel.^[5] The rudder weighed 230 tons, the propeller 50 tons.

The Seawise Giant was damaged during Iran–Iraq War by an Iraqi air force attack while transiting the Strait of Hormuz on 14 May 1988 and carrying Iranian crude oil. She sank and was declared a total loss.

Shortly after the Iran-Iraq war, Norman International bought the wreckage of the ship and repaired her. She was renamed "Happy Giant" after the repairs .These repairs were done at the Keppel Company shipyard in Singapore after towing her from the Persian Gulf. She entered service in October 1991 as the Happy Giant.

Jørgen Jahre bought the tanker in 1991 for US$39 million and renamed her Jahre Viking. From 1991 to 2004, she was owned by Loki Stream AS and flew the Norwegian flag.

In 2004, she was bought by First Olsen Tankers Pte. Ltd., renamed Knock Nevis, and converted into a permanently moored storage tanker in the Qatar Al Shaheen oil field in the Persian Gulf.

Knock Nevis was renamed Mont, and reflagged with Sierra Leone by her new owners Amber Development Corporation, for a single voyage to India in January 2010 where she was scrapped.Her 36 tonne anchor was saved and sent to the Hong Kong Maritime Museum for exhibition.

Seawise Giant was the longest ship ever constructed, longer than the height of many of the world's tallest buildings. Though slightly smaller than Taipei 101 at 509.2 metres (1,671 ft) and the Willis Tower at 527.3 metres (1,730 ft) from street level to top of antenna, she is larger than the Petronas Twin Towers at 452 metres (1,483 ft).

In spite of its great length, the Seawise Giant was not the largest ship by gross tonnage, ranking fifth at 260,941 GT, behind the four 274,838 to 275,276 GT Batillus-class supertankers. The Batillus class and the Seawise Giant were the largest self-propelled objects ever constructed.

Seawise Giant was featured on the BBC series, Jeremy Clarkson's Extreme Machines while she was under way as Jahre Viking. The captain claimed it could go 16 to 16 1/2 (29,6km/h) knots in good weather, that it took 8,000 meters (5 1/2 miles) to stop from that speed, and that the turning circle in clear weather was about two miles (3 km).

Source:Wikipedia