Listverse again

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Seawise Giant

The Seawise Giant was a product of the late 1970s when supertankers were being constructed in shipyards all over the world to meet the demand for crude oil. After she admirably bankrupted her original Greek owners while still under construction, the Giant was acquired by a Hong Kong shipping magnate who looked at her monstrous dimensions, remarked that it wasn’t quite big enough, and further increased her size to its dizzying final form.

The Seawise Giant was so gargantuan that her length was measured in skyscrapers and her deck area measured in soccer fields. At 450 meters (1,500 ft) with a width of 69 meters (225 ft), she was so large that she couldn’t pass through the English Channel and was so heavy that she took 9 kilometers (5.5 mi) to come to a complete stop.

Her immense size most likely saved her in 1988 when she was attacked by Iraqi fighter jets during the Iran-Iraq war while traveling through the Straits of Hormuz. She remained easily accessible for salvage in the shallow waters in which she partially sank. After being resurrected in 1989, she continued service under a litany of different names until 2004, when she was moored as a permanent offshore loading and storage platform in the Persian Gulf. The Knock Nevis, as she was renamed, would never see the open ocean again. In 2009, like many other commercial naval vessels, she was sold to be scrapped in Alang, India.

The only thing that remains of the world’s largest ship is her 36-ton anchor, which now resides in front of the Hong Kong Maritime Museum.

Patrick studies Industrial Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is fascinated with big things and often spends far too much time researching tall buildings and large ships rather than focusing on more fruitful ventures such as Facebook and Twitter.

basically all of my information comes from listverse, mental floss, and popular science.