The biggest ship of the world

( Photo collection Honza Plener )

Have you ever wondered which is the biggest ship on earth? The boats that tipically reach huge dimensions are Cruising ships, Battleships, Aircraft Carriers and Tankers.
The biggest of all (and with a big gap from the others) is the Supertanker "Knock Nevis" (formerly known as Seawise Giant, Happy Giant, and Jahre Viking) with its 458.45 m (1,504 ft) in length and 68.9 m (226 ft) in width. It has a deadweight of 564,763 tonnes and a summer displacement of 647,955 t when laden with nearly 650,000 m³ (4.1 million barrels) of petroleum. The ship has a draft of 24.6 m (81 feet) when fully loaded, which makes it impossible for the ship to navigate even the English Channel, let alone man-made canals at Suez and Panama. It has also a long and complicated history, It was built between 1979 and 1981, damaged during the Iran-Iraq War, and refloated in 1991, but is now used as an immobile offshore platform for the oil industry. To read all history click here.




In this graph you can see the size of Knock Nevis compared with some of the largest ships:


Graphs taken from Wikipedia

For more info and pictures of this Sea Giant try here and here