The Largest Ship Ever Built

Allure of the Seas

This month, the world's largest cruise-liner set sail on its maiden voyage. The Royal Caribbean Cruise Line's Allure of the Seas is 1,188 feet (362m) long, up to 198 feet (61m) wide, and rises more than 20 stories above the water line. It weighs 225k gross tons, and has room to accommodate over 9,000 passengers and crew members. For those who keep score, the Allure OTS is more than 2.5 times longer, more than 2.5 times wider, and more than 5 times taller than Noah's Ark was. However, even lacking the Allure's open buffets, the Ark apparently was able to hold more pigs.  

Noah's Ark

So, the Allure OTS must be the largest ship ever built, right? No, it is not. That title is held by a boring oil tanker. Well, actually, it was not so boring after all.

 The Seawise Giant / Happy Giant / Jahre Viking / Knock Nevis / Mont

In 1979, the Seawise Giant was delivered to a Greek owner, who was unable to receive it. So, it sat around for two years, and finally went to work for a Hong Kong shipping company, flying a Norwegian flag, in 1981. During the Iraq-Iran War, the ship was badly damaged and once again sat around in Brunei waiting to be refitted. In 1989, the Seawise Giant was renamed the Happy Giant. Given its history, it is not known where the name "Happy" came from. In 1991, the ship was again ready for service for new owners, and the Happy Giant was renamed: It became the Jahre Viking.

But, wait, there's more. In 2004, the Jahre Viking was sold to another company, and became the Knock Nevis. This time, it was converted into a permanently moored storage tanker in Qatar, so it became the merchant vessel equivalent of a flightless bird. Finally, in 2010, it was decided that the ship should be sold for scrap metal. Before sending it off to India, someone had the creative idea to rename it. Therefore, the Knock Nevis became the Mont.

So, how big was this floating trading card? The largest cruise-liner is almost 1,200 feet long; this ship was over 1,500 feet long -- think of 5 football fields laid end to end. If the ship could stand and walk around, it would be taller than the Empire State Building (see chart below). The Allure OTS weighs about 225k gross tons; the tanker weighed more than twice that (565k gross tons). Of course, in estimating the Allure's weight, I did not include its passengers, which would add a significant amount of gross weight. 

Click on chart for better view.