Largest Ships
Behold the Masters of the Sea!Humanity has always had a certain fascination with the world's largest objects, and ships are earth's largest, man-made moving machines.With the world turning to the seas for their holidays, it comes as no surprise that shipbuilders seem to have entered a race to build the world's largest ship ever. Click on the vessels to view the specifications! Some of the Largest Ships to Sail the Waters: |
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| Carnival Destiny Carnival Destiny is a cruise ship that is owned and operated by Carnival Cruise Lines. When she entered service in 1996, she was the largest passenger ship ever built as measured by gross tonnage of 101,353 GRT with 12 decks, and capacity for 2,642 passengers and 1,040 crew. The Destiny, 272.19 m long and 35.36 m wide, with a draft of 8.23 m spends her time plying the waters of the Caribbean. She is the lead ship of the Destiny Class and has two similar sister ships, the Carnival Triumph, and the Carnival Victory. |
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| Titanic Titanic was an Olympic-class passenger liner owned by the White Star Line and built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland. At the time of her launching in 1912, she was the largest passenger steamship in the world. This Olympic class ocean liner 269.1 m long and 28.2 m broad with 10.5 m draft had 46,328 gross register tons capacity. Titanic had a displacement of 52,310 tons and could carry 3,547 passengers. The Titanic closely resembled her older sister Olympic. Although she enclosed more space and therefore had a larger gross register tonnage, the hull was exactly the same length as the Olympic. The Titanic had a specialty restaurant called Café Parisien, a feature that the Olympic did not have until 1913. The Titanic, 1004 gross register tons larger than the Olympic was the largest active ship in the world during her maiden and tragic voyage in April 1912. |
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| Grand Princess Grand Princess, a large cruise ship owned by Princess Cruises was built in 1998 by Fincantieri Cantieri Navali Italiani in Monfalcone, Italy, at a cost of approximately US$450 million. She was the largest and most expensive ship ever built at the time and was placed in service with 109,000 gross tons capacity. The 18 deck Grand Princess can carry 2,600 passengers and 1100 crew, has a length of 289m, 35m beam and 7 m draft and can cruise at a speed of 22.5 knots. Grand Princess was the first of the Grand Class ships, and has a different decor scheme to her sister ships, using darker woods, and the interior decor is more similar to the smaller Sun Class ships. |
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| RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) is a Cunard Line ocean liner named after the earlier Cunard liner RMS Queen Elizabeth. The ship has a gross tonnage (GT) of 70,327 tons and is 294 m long, 32.03 m broad and draws 9.87 m of water, fully loaded. She had a top speed of 32.5 knots using her original steam turbine powerplant, which was increased to 34 knots when she was re-powered with a diesel electric powerplant, making her the fastest passenger ship afloat. During almost 40 years of service, the QE2 has travelled the world and now operates predominantly as a cruise ship, sailing out of Southampton, England. At the end of its active service, QE2 in late 2009 will become a floating hotel at Palm Jumeirah, Dubai. |
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| RMS Queen Mary RMS Queen Mary is an ocean liner that sailed the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 for the Cunard Line. The ship was named after Queen Mary, the consort of King George V. With a 2139 passengers and 1101 crew capacity it had a gross tonnage (GT) of 80,774. The Queen Mary, 294.1 m long 36.1 m beam and 11.9 m draft sailed at high speeds of for most of her voyage to New York until heavy fog forced a reduction of speed of 28.5 knots .The Queen Mary is now a hotel and a Museum Ship attracting tourists in Long Beach, California. |
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| USS Nimitz USS Nimitz is a supercarrier in the United States Navy, the lead ship of its class. One of the largest warships in the world, the keel of Nimitz was laid in 22 June 1968 by Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Virginia, and she was commissioned in May 1975 by President Gerald Ford. The ship, 332.8 m long and 76.8 m broad, was named after Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, who commanded the Pacific fleet in World War II. The vessel is powered by 2 Westinghouse A4W nuclear reactors ,4 steam turbines, 4 shafts producing a power of 260,000 shp (194 MW).It has a speed of 30 + knots with its nuclear reactor engines. The ship has a complement of 3200 with an additional air wing of 2480. The ship is equipped with state-of-art sensors and processing systems which include AN/SPS 3-D and 2-D air search radar, AN/SPQ target acquisition radar, AN/SPN air traffic control radars and many more advanced equipment. It carries 90 F/A-18 Super hornet aircrafts. |
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| Knock Nevis The Knock Nevis is a Floating Storage and Offloading unit (FSO) currently owned by the Norwegian company Fred Olsen Production. The unit was previously a supertanker and as such held the record for the world's largest ship. As a tanker the ship was known under the names Seawise Giant, Happy Giant, and Jahre Viking. Knock Nevis was built in 1979 at Sumitomo Heavy Industries's Oppama shipyard as Seawise Giant. After the refit, the ship had a capacity of 564,763 metric tons of deadweight (DWT), a length overall of 458.45 metres, a beam of 68.8 metres and a draft of 24.611 metres. She had 46 tanks, 31,541 square metres of deck space, and was too large to pass through the English Channel. The ship is now permanently moored in the Qatar Al Shaheen oil field in the Persian Gulf, operating as an FSO. |
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| Emma Mærsk Emma Mærsk is the largest container ship, owned by the A. P. Moller-Maersk Group. Emma Mærsk is able to carry around 11,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) which is about 1,400 more containers than any other ship is capable of carrying. The ship, 397 m long and 56 metres wide, has a Wärtsilä-Sulzer 14RTFLEX96-C engine, currently the world's largest single diesel unit, weighing 2,300tons and capable of 109,000 horsepower propelling the vessel at a speed of 25.5 knots. The ship has several features to protect the environment. This includes recycling the exhaust, mixed with fresh air back into the engine for reuse. Instead of biocides used by much of the industry to keep barnacles off of the hull, a special silicone-based anti-fouling paint is used. This increases the ship's efficiency by reducing drag while also protecting the ocean from biocides that may leak. The silicone paint covering the part of the hull below the waterline is credited for lowering the water drag enough to save 1200 tons of fuel per year. |
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| Freedom of the Seas Freedom of the Seas is a Royal Caribbean cruise ship which is currently the largest Passenger vessel in the world. The 18-deck ship has 1,800 rooms which can accommodate 4,370 passengers served by 1,360 crew. She is 339m long, 38.6 m wide and has a draft of 8.5m with a top cruising speed of 21.6 knots. The Vessel was built at the Aker Finnyards drydock in Turku, Finland which is also building her sister ship, Liberty of the Seas. The added width of the ship is utilized by the open promenade extending through the upper decks of the ships. This gives all upper level cabins a window, either to the port or starboard side or to the promenade. In 2009, the first in a new Genesis class of ships is slated to displace the Freedom class as the world's largest passenger ship.splace the Freedom class as the world's largest passenger ship. |
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