The largest super-tanker built ever is named Knock Nevis. It is well known as Seawise Giant, Happy Giant or Jahre Viking, but with changing of ship-owners and its function are coming new names. Now the vessel is operating as a storage tank to the platforms in Qatar. That was dictated, because of its large measurements. The vessel has a deadweight of 565,000 metric tons, a length of 458 meters and a beam of 69 meters. When it is fully loaded it cannot pass through the English channel, which is 32 miles wide, and what about Suez Channel or Panama Channel. That is why, the ship-owner decided to use it as a immobile storage tank offshore in the Qatar, where it is more profitable for the owner.
  The story for building this vessel is very interesting. It was designed to be the largest super-tanker built ever, when it was ordered. But just some months after starting of the work for building this vessel the owner, decided that sthis ship is too small and added 87 thousands tones more to its deadweight. So the super-tanker Knock Nevis collected a whole deadweight of 565,000 metric tones. In fact this vessel is on the fifth place by its gross tonnage, because it is just 236,710, behind the other ULCCs – TI.Europe, TI Asia, TI Oceania, TI Africa, but when we are talking about deadweight and measurements it is the first one. The vessel Knock Nevis was built in 1981 and put on water with the name Sea Wise Giant, but from 2004 is operating in the Qatar as a immobile offshore platform. A vessel has a summer displacement of 647,955 m.t. and can carry 4.1 million barrels. The draft of this vessel when it is fully loaded is 26.4 meters. You can imagine what are the measurements of this vessel, and how it is moving through the water. Even the largest ports were operating with this vessel too hardly and that was the reason to be moored in Qatar as an immobile platform. Such kind of vessel has only a couple of ports that can serve such ultra large crude carrier. Knock Nevis operated a lot of years for its ship-owner, but after the last repair was decided to work in Qatar.
date: 20th March, 2008