For Your Culture (day 4): Seawise Giant

I have always said that war creates some of the best technological pieces and media, however, people understand this words as i was only talking about military, actually not. War is an icon generating machine, for example, how much songs were inmortalised by conflicts? Paranoid and War Pigs by Black Sabbath, The End and Break On Through by The Doors, Paint It Black by The Rolling Stones… and the list is never ending. We wouldnt have heard of Jimi Hendrix if wars didnt happen.

Anyways today i am not talking about the Cold War era, instead, i will be talking about one of the results of a war that nearly no one remembers as a war, thought it was. A war that… only lasted six days? But ill leave the war for a future post. Today we are talking about an actual working machine nd not a rare prototype, something that will not happen very often in the post series.

Today we will be talking about the Seawise Giant:

After the Six Day War happened in the 50's , following the suez crisis we all know, shipbuilders were concerned about the fact that the suez channel was not a quite safe route for cargo ships, as on mid-orient wars were still happening, sailors and shipping companies changed their routes so that they just went all the way below Africa. Without the limiting factor of having to go through canals, merchant ships started to become bigger and bigger. This was what was being planned for Hull 1016 that was being built at Yamatomo Heavy Industries in their Oppama shipyard. The craft had a weight of 418611 tons, an enormous value if you consider it was ordered in 1974.
The vessel was tried in the sea but showed some vibration problems, and its owner did not claim it so the shipyard was forced to sell it after giving him the name Oppama. The new owner, C.Y. Tung, a chinese businessman, was not happy with the ship cargo capacity and ordered the shipyard to add aditional 141000 tons of capacity, the ship was made longer and was renamed Seawise Giant (a joke to Tung's name: CY's Giant). While doing a rutinary crude transfer to the smaller tanker ship TC Barcelona, it was bombarded either with mk.84 2000lb bombs or with Exocet missiles due to the Iran-Irak War, the weapon varies depending on the source of the information. Both ships were nearly fully laden and ended up with severe structural damage. It is said that after the fire, Seawise Giant sank, however there are images showing the ship floating after the incident. The hull was sold to Norman International, shipping company who repaired it and renamed it Happy Giant. Nothing interesting happened during this period.
It was then sold to another company (i am too lazy to keep searching for the names, sorry guys), who again renamed the ship to Jahre Viking and the ship safely sailed with this company without any incident. While it was being used by this same company, a young Jeremy Clarkson (you should know who he is) made a visit to the ship in order to film an episode for the BBC of his own series Clarkson's Amazing Machines. This was before he was any famous and before he was hired for being the main presenter of Top Gear and one of the most famous british persons to date. I dont know you guys but old Top Gear was my infance, i had great times watching him and the trio on their adventures.
The ship was AGAIN sold and AGAIN renamed Knock Nevis, which i think is the coolest name it had, jokes apart from CY's. The new owners moored it at the Al Shaheed oil field, where the ship stayed as a floating oil storage unit until… guess what? IT WAS AGAIN SOLD, this time to the Alang ship wrecking company and this was the last time he was moved. It was renamed Mont and crashed into Alang beach on 2009, it was scrapped until 2010. The 30 ton anchor is still preserved at the place where it was built and it is exposed publicly.
It was the biggest ship ever built and a reminder of how amazing was engineering in the 70's. A ship so big it couldnt even go through the English canal (canal de la mancha para los hispanohablantes) if it was loaded, indeed it wanst able to cross any canal at all. It had a capacity of 565000 tons, carried 4.1 Million crude oil barrels at once, measured 458 meters long (1500 feet) and had a depth of 30 meters (80ft). The rudder itself weighted 130 tons, and it was quite lightweight considering the propeller was 50 ton. Its max speed was 16.5 knots if the weather was good, to completely stop the ship from that speed, it took 9 kilometers, 3 kilometers to perform a 180 degree turn.
If you are interested on the subject, i would suggest watching Jeremy Clarkson's episode and investigate it yourself. You can sail it yourself in roblox game Shipping Lanes, but i advice it takes much time to unlock it and it is quite frustrating to use if your play style is active as the ship is ridiculously slow, however if you are a passive player this boat is for you, go watch some Top Gear while the ship goes where you directed it to. I have played it and it is a ship you will either love or hate, actually i sold mine some time ago but i can prove i played it as i have the badge.
Hope you enjoyed the post, always check your oil level, drive safe and see you on next post.