(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Hidden History: The Largest Ship Ever Built [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-04-09 The largest ship ever built (so far) was best-known under the name Seawise Giant. "Hidden History" is a diary series that explores forgotten and little-known areas of history. “Seawise Giant” undergoing repairs in Singapore after being refloated photo from WikiCommons In the early 1970s, the OPEC oil embargo taught the world, suddenly and brutally, how dependent everyone was upon oil. The entire global economy was fueled by the oil which flowed mostly from the Middle East. The cheapest and most efficient way to transport all that oil around the world was by sea, and throughout the 1950s and 1960s, specially-designed oil tankers crisscrossed the oceans, with each generation of ships getting bigger and bigger in an effort to deliver the most oil in one trip. In 1974, a Greek shipping company placed an order with the Sumitomo firm in Japan for what would be the largest ship ever made. Measuring over 1400 feet long, this “Ultra Large Crude Carrier” would displace almost half a million tons fully loaded. Work was begun at the Oppama Shipyard in Yokosuka, and “Hull 1016” underwent sea trials in 1979. Immediately, however, there was an issue: the ship exhibited a severe vibration problem whenever her engines were reversed. The Greek contractor refused to accept delivery, cancelled the deal, and took the matter to arbitration. Sumitomo took possession of Hull 1610, named her Oppama, and put her up for sale. The Orient Overseas Container Line, based in Hong Kong, agreed to buy the ship, but they decided that they wanted it to be bigger, so they moved the hull to Hong Kong and began a process called “jumboization”. The hull was cut in two and a new section was spliced in, adding another 146,000 tons of oil storage. When finished, the remodeled ship was re-named Seawise Giant (a pun on the name of the company’s owner, C.Y. Tung). She was (and still is) considered to be the largest ship ever built. At a length of 1,504 feet, she was fifty feet longer than the Empire State Building is tall, and nearly twice as long as the Titanic. She displaced almost 660,000 tons fully loaded and could carry 4.1 million barrels of oil in 46 separate cargo tanks. Seawise Giant required a minimum water depth of over 80 feet and was too large to sail through the Panama Canal, the Suez Canal, or even the English Channel. At a top speed of 16 knots she was not very fast, either, though she required a whopping six miles of distance to come to a full stop from speed. But the sole job of Seawise Giant was to carry as much crude oil as possible from one port to another. For the next several years, she had an uneventful career carrying crude from the Middle East to the US east coast. Then, in September 1980, Iraqi military forces under Saddam Hussein, hoping to take advantage of the chaos resulting from the Islamic Revolution in Iran, crossed the border to seize territories along the Shatt Al-Arab waterway that had long been under dispute. The resulting war devolved into a stalemated slugfest. Iraqi troops tried to break the deadlock with chemical weapons, both sides began launching missiles against each other in a campaign called “The War of the Cities”, and, in 1984, Iraq began a strategy of attacking Iranian oil facilities and tankers in the Persian Gulf, with the intention of disrupting Iranian oil deliveries and crippling Tehran’s economy. Over the years, the “Tanker War” expanded as both sides began to hit ships from countries that were considered to be aiding the other, and soon every oil tanker in the Gulf was in danger. That prompted the US Navy to intervene by providing armed escorts for neutral shipping. In May 1988, the Seawise Giant was anchored near Larak Island, off the coast of Iran. Her task was to serve as a sort of floating storage tank for other oil tankers, and at this time the Spanish tanker Barcelona was moored alongside and was filling her storage tanks from the Giant. Suddenly a flight of Iraqi attack fighters appeared, and both ships were hit by bombs and Exocet anti-ship missiles, setting them ablaze. Gutted by the intense fires, both the Barcelona and the Seawise Giant sank, with the immense hulk of the Giant resting on the shallow bottom with much of her upper deck still above the surface. They were still there when the Iran-Iraq War ended in August. Now, a Norwegian company named Norman International bought the rights to salvage the wreck of the Seawise Giant and refloated her, towing her to the port of Singapore where she underwent years of repair. In October 1991, the completely refurbished ship re-entered service again, with the new name Happy Giant. Over the next 20 years, the Giant passed through several different owners and bore the names Jahre Viking and then Knock Nevis. For most of that time she served as an offshore floating storage tank at the Al Shaheen Oil Field in Qatar and was used to transfer oil to smaller tankers. In 2008 the ship, under the name Jahre Viking, was featured in the BBS TV series Jeremy Clarkson’s Extreme Machines and was billed as “The Largest Man-Made Moving Machine on the Planet”. Finally in 2009 it was decided to retire her. She was sold to a scrapyard in India, renamed Mont, and undertook her final voyage from Qatar to the Alang-Sosiya Ship Breaking Yard in Gujarat, where she was dismantled in 2010. Today, only the ship’s 36-ton anchor remains, on display at a maritime museum in Hong Kong. Since the time when the Seawise Giant was built, there have been some ships produced that were longer and others that were higher empty gross tonnage, but with her combined length and loaded tonnage, the Giant is still considered to be the largest ship ever to sail. 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