Freedom ship
Imagine a mile-long stretch of 25-story-tall buildings in New York City; now imagine that floating on the water.
The Freedom Ship has little in common with a conventional ship; it is actually nothing more than a big barge...But what if this tremendous barge was assigned a voyage that required slowly cruising around the world, hugging the shoreline, and completing one revolution every 3 years?" There is even talk about making this city an independent country.
Incidentally, the "Freedom Ship" will possibly also be the largest man-made structure on Earth, which puts it in the same category as the Tower of Babel. It will be extremely vulnerable to a spectacular downfall, even if miraculously built (the last update on the site is from February 2005, when everything still revolved around financing) For now we can just dream on, looking at the pictures:
Incidentally, the "Freedom Ship" will possibly also be the largest man-made structure on Earth, which puts it in the same category as the Tower of Babel. It will be extremely vulnerable to a spectacular downfall, even if miraculously built (the last update on the site is from February 2005, when everything still revolved around financing) For now we can just dream on, looking at the pictures:
Notice the similarity of the above concept with the 1928 model of an airport on top of a giant building! Los Angeles architects expected private planes to replace automobiles in a near future; hence this 300m-long roof-top airstrip:
More Cruise Ship Concepts
Kvaerner Masa-Yards' Super-Large Cruise Ship (on the left) and The Nova, a Panamax-Max ship displacing more than 100,000 GT (on the right):
This article speaks about "Project Genesis" - Royal Caribbean's largest-ever cruise ship with capacity of 5,400 passengers:
The Biggest Ships Ever Constructed - Supertankers Extraordinaire!
The biggest ships ever constructed were four supertankers built in France at the end of the seventies, having a 555.000 DWT and a 414 meters length. They launched from the shipyard Chantiers de l'Atlantique at Saint Nazaire. The only larger ship was the jumboized "Knock Nevis"; ex "Jahre Viking", ex "Seawise Giant", ex "Porthos", in 1981 (see entry in Part 2). However, the Batillus class had the greater gross tonnage per ship, and it could be argued that they were, in fact, larger than the Knock Nevis.
By the way, this is why it's not a good idea to build bigger ships, if you want them to be able to cross canals: ("Scraaaape!")
Supertanker Knock Nevis/ Jahre Viking - big ship with a big story
This is the king of all supertankers, and possibly the biggest ship ever constructed (see French tankers on page 1, competing for this title). However, it is certainly the BIGGEST SHIP still in operation (albeit as a "floating storage and offloading unit" only). There is also a larger-than-life story associated with that ship.
In March 2004, the ship was sold again and sent by her new owner to the Dubai shipyard to be refitted as a floating storage and offloading unit (FSO). There, she was given her current name, "Knock Nevis". On the following photos we see her arrival at the docks - the final sea voyage of the great and legendary ship:
