In its 30 years of existence, the Seawise Giant won several titles: the largest ship in the world, the heaviest ship in the world, the largest capacity, or the largest vehicle built by humans that has ever existed.
And it also had several names: Seawise Giant, Happy Giant, Jahre Viking, Knock Nevis and Mont.
This ship was what is known as a supertanker.
Just as it could transport millions of liters of oil, it was also so large that it was impossible for it to enter many ports. And due to its dimensions, it was prevented from crossing key interoceanic passages, such as the Panama Canal or the Suez Canal.
As if that were not enough, in those three decades of existence, the Seawise Giant also suffered an attack by Saddam Hussein’s army in Iraq, which engulfed it in fire until it sank.
But like every great story of the seas, that catastrophe was not the end of it. He was reborn and continued to be active for many more years.
Born big (and enlarged)
This supertanker was built in 1979 at the Sumitomo Heavy Industries shipyard in the city of Oppama, Japan.
Various sources indicate that a Greek magnate was the one who ordered it to be built, but he never finished acquiring it. Then in 1981 it was bought by Hong Kong businessman Tung Chao-yung, owner of the maritime transport company Orient Overseas Container Line.
He named the ship Seawise Giant for a play on words with his father’s first name, Tung Chee-hwa.
According to the Hong Kong Maritime Museum, its new owners didn’t think it was big enough, so they ordered it to be 140,000 tons of additional capacity were added by assembling one more section of length.
So this new supertanker reached the record length of 458.45 meters. That’s more than the size of skyscrapers like the Petronas Towers (252) of Malaysia or the New York Empire State (381).
It was also almost 100 meters longer than the Icon of the Seas (365), the largest tourist cruise ship in the world today. And about 200 meters longer than the Titanic (269).
Its beam (the width of the ship) also had the considerable length of 68 meters. In the huge tanks she could carry almost 4 million barrels of oilenough to take a car to the Sun about 10 times (round trip).
And when it was fully charged, it had weighing 657,000 tons. To move that amount of weight, it burned 220 tons of fuel a day.
When the BBC visited the ship in 1998, Captain Surrinder Kumar Mohan explained that it could travel at almost 16 knots (almost 30 km/h).
“To brake and stop completely, it requires about 8 km of space,” the captain said.
And making it turn in the opposite direction, he said, was another complex task: it required about 3 km of space to achieve it.
war objective
But that ship the BBC visited was a rebuilt Seawise Giant.
And at the height of the oil trade between the Middle East and the West, this supertanker made deliveries around the world and also served as a floating reservoir.
It was this last function that he fulfilled in May 1988, when he was stationed on the Iranian island of Larak. The Persian Gulf was at that time going through the last months of a war between Iraq and Iran.
Without prior notice, The Seawise Giant was attacked by bombs from Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army.
As expected, the ship was engulfed in flames and ended up sinking in the shallow waters of the gulf.
Once the war was over, the Norwegian firm Norman International wanted to rescue that ship. She was refloated and repaired with 3,700 tons of new steel in 1991.
It was no longer the Seawise Giant, as it was renamed Happy Giant.
The decline of the Giant
With its rebirth, the supertanker entered into operation again, but now moving fuel for the merchant transport firm KS. It was again renamed, now as Jahre Viking.
Already in the 1990s, the industry was moving towards more fuel-efficient tankers, an area in which the Jahre Viking was not the best.
Furthermore, the fact that it was too big to cross through key maritime passages such as the Suez Canal or Panama Canalbegan to play against its profitability.
So in 2004 it was sold again to the Norwegian First Olsen Tankers, which refurbished it to become a floating warehouse of oil.
Now renamed as Knock Nevis, was taken to the shores of Qatar. And finally ceased operation in 2009, when he was renamed as Mont and taken to India to be dismantled piece by piece.
Of the colossal Seawise Giant, only its 36-ton steel anchor survived, which is displayed in a garden of the Hong Kong Maritime Museum, the port that saw it born as the largest supertanker that has ever existed.
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