Thursday, March 28

This was the Seawise Giant, the largest ship that ever sailed the seas and longer than the Empire State itself


Throughout its convoluted trajectory, the oil tanker Seawise Giant fueled its legend based on milestones. With a length of almost half a kilometer, she earned the reputation of being the largest self-propelled ship ever built. When she was hit by Iraqi army planes and she ended up half sunk, in 1988, she became probably the biggest shipwreck in the world. And with the dawn of the 21st century, after having chained several lives and worn as many names on her helmet, she became a gigantic pile of junk piled up in a junkyard in India.

If your cyclopean carving would not have earned him a place in naval history, he would certainly deserve to occupy it for his chronicle, worthy of a cathedral saga in the purest Kent Follet style.

The origins of the Seawise Giant date back to the 1970s, the time of the big oil tankers, when the closure of the Suez Canal encouraged shipping companies to bet on XXL-size ships that could travel around the Cape of Good Hope on their belly. full of crude The one in charge of giving it shape was the Japanese Sumitomo Heavy Industries, which went to work in its Kanagawa shipyards to fulfill the order proposed in 1974 by a Greek tycoon.

The giant of the seas

If there are stories that are born with a star and other stars, that of the Seawise Giant is one of the last. When in 1979 the oil tanker was already completed in the waters of Kanagawa, the Greek shipowner backed down and did not want to accept it. The reason —as pointed out in goes to boats— is not entirely clear: perhaps due to lack of funds, because he was not entirely satisfied with the result, or simply because in 1975 the Suez Canal had been reopened to traffic after eight years of vetoes.

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The point is that in Sumitomo they suddenly found themselves with a load of 396 meters in length. They didn’t even baptize him. They called it first 1016 and then Oppama, the name of the shipyard itself, waiting for a good bidder to appear. And it came, of course. The enormous capacity of the 1016 caught the attention of Hong Kong tycoon CY Tung, of the Hong Kong Orient Overseas Container Line, who asked for it to be reconditioned for further strengthen the capacity of the ship

Tung wanted more space.

Greater margin to make trips profitable.

And, by the way, to be able to boast of a record.

The result was a gigantic ship with a capacity —Vessel Tracking specifies— of 564,763 deadweight tons and a stunning length of 458.45 meters. Her record is completed by a few more figures: her displacement at full load reached 646,642 tons, she had a beam of 68.8 meters, a depth of 24.6 and a depth of 29.8 meters and reached a speed of 16 knots.

Seawise

As seeing the numbers like this, empty, on the screen, can be a bit abstract, it is worth remembering some sizes. If we include its pinnacle, the Empire State reaches 443 m, more or less equal to the Petronas Twin Towers (452) in Kuala Lumpur. That means if we were to stand Tung’s ship up on its roof you could look down and see the roofs of both towers.

Tung also gave him the name by which the ship would go down in history: Seawise Giant, the giant of the sea. It’s not too original, okay; but it certainly describes it pretty well.

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The tanker was launched in 1981 with 31,541 square meters of deck space, 46 tanks and a clear mission: to connect the Middle East and the United States. For seven years he was able to carry out his task without major setbacks, but in 1988 the war between Iran and Iraq crossed his path. Its warehouses were loaded with Iranian crude oil and it ended up becoming a target for the Iraqi Air Force. Result: ended up half sunk off the coast of Larak Island, Iran.

If it had been any other ship perhaps the story of the Seawise Giant would have died down then; but her size XXL attracted the interest of a Norwegian consortium that considered that refloating and repairing it could be a good deal. The operation was completed in 1989 and for two years she set up in Singapore, from where she came out with a new name: Happy Giant.

Giant, yes; but Happy doesn’t. Although it ended up in the hands of a Norwegian tycoon who renamed it for the umpteenth time —Jahre Viking— and it continued to operate for another 13 years, its enormous dimensions, the same ones that made it so spectacular, greatly complicated its operations at sea.

Bateaux Comparaison2 With Allure Svg

The ship was difficult to maneuver, its enormous weight increased the risk of running aground and, it is said, prevented it from navigating some of the strategic points of the commercial routes, such as the English, Suez or Panama channels. As detailed goes to boatsit reached 16.5 knots and when its captain wanted to stop it, he needed a margin of nine kilometers.

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That complicated its future in the 21st century and in 2004 it passed into the hands of a new owner, First Olsen Tankers, who —of course— changed its name again, reformed it in Dubai and began to use it as floating storage unit: a gigantic XXL tanker located on the coast of Qatar. In its own way, that marked the retirement of old Seawise Giant.

At the end of that same decade, its owners decided that the tanker had complied and gave it the settlement: they sent it to the Alang-Sosiya scrapyard, in Asia. Times of India assures that more or less 18,000 workers were needed to complete the scrapping work.

Knock Nevis

Of the Seawise —alias Oppama, Happy Giant, Jahre Viking and the long line of names that he accumulated throughout his three decades of service— we are left with the photos, videos and an impressive anchor of 36 tons that is still preserved today in the Hong Kong Maritime Museum.

During its decades of sailing, it gained the fame of being the largest self-propelled boat ever built, a fame that it still maintains today. The record would only be partially disputed by Shell Prelude, a huge floating platform of liquefied natural gas with 488 meters in length and 600,000 tons. Her approach, though, is slightly different: Prelude isn’t meant to move as much as the Seawise Giant did, but to act like a huge island.

Pictures | Aukevisser and Wikipedia

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