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The Largest Ship In the World Is Being Built In Korea
HughPickens.com writes Alastair Philip Wiper writes that at 194 feet wide and 1,312 feet long, the Matz Maersk Triple E is the largest ship ever built, capable of carrying 18,000 20-foot containers. Its propellers weigh 70 tons apiece and it is too big for the Panama Canal, though it can shimmy through the Suez. A U-shaped hull design allows more room below deck, providing capacity for 18,000 shipping containers arranged in 23 rows – enough space to transport 864 million bananas. The Triple-E is constructed from 425 pre-fabricated segments, making up 21 giant "megablock" cross sections. Most of the 955,250 liters of paint used on each ship is in the form of an anti- corrosive epoxy, pre-applied to each block. Finally, a polyurethane topcoat of the proprietary Maersk brand color "Hardtop AS-Blue 504" is sprayed on.
Twenty Triple-E class container ships have been commissioned by Danish shipping company Maersk Lines for delivery by 2015. The ships are being built at the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering factory in the South Korean port of Opko. The shipyard, about an hour from Busan in the south of the country, employs about 46,000 people, and "could reasonably be described as the worlds biggest Legoland," writes Wiper. "Smiling workers cycle around the huge shipyard as massive, abstractly over proportioned chunks of ships are craned around and set into place." The Triple E is just one small part of the output of the shipyard, as around 100 other vessels including oil rigs are in various stages of completion at the any time." The vessels will serve ports along the northern-Europe-to-Asia route, many of which have had to expand to cope with the ships' size. "You don't feel like you're inside a boat, it's more like a cathedral," Wiper says. "Imagine this space being full of consumer goods, and think about how many there are on just one ship. Then think about how many are sailing round the world every day. It's like trying to think about infinity."
Twenty Triple-E class container ships have been commissioned by Danish shipping company Maersk Lines for delivery by 2015. The ships are being built at the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering factory in the South Korean port of Opko. The shipyard, about an hour from Busan in the south of the country, employs about 46,000 people, and "could reasonably be described as the worlds biggest Legoland," writes Wiper. "Smiling workers cycle around the huge shipyard as massive, abstractly over proportioned chunks of ships are craned around and set into place." The Triple E is just one small part of the output of the shipyard, as around 100 other vessels including oil rigs are in various stages of completion at the any time." The vessels will serve ports along the northern-Europe-to-Asia route, many of which have had to expand to cope with the ships' size. "You don't feel like you're inside a boat, it's more like a cathedral," Wiper says. "Imagine this space being full of consumer goods, and think about how many there are on just one ship. Then think about how many are sailing round the world every day. It's like trying to think about infinity."
The Triple-E is unusual in several aspects apart from its size.
1. It has 2 engines instead of one. This improves packaging (less volume lost to the engine room), mainly because the engines are shorter (8 cylinders in line instead of 14). Earlier ships had one engine to reduce complexity.
2. It's slower, with an operational speed of 35 km/h (down from 45 km/h of its predecessor). This saves fuel.
No, when you are working on such a massive scale they really aren't simpler, the engineering and sheer weights alone are astronomical.
Not really, the numbers are larger but the math is very well understood. This is a very mature industry, perhaps the oldest manufacturing industry in the world. People have been building boats for thousands of years. Ship's aren't redesigned every time one is built either. The bulk of a ship is the exact same "U" profile. Design it once, copy it all down the length of the ship. The bow and the stern are the only complex parts, but contribute little to strength. The bow and stern are generally proven designs which are taken "off the shelf" and adapted to the application with only slight changes. Chopping off the back end of a ship (accommodation, engineering, and propulsion area), refurbishing it, and welding it to a brand new ship hull is not uncommon. Unlike with pleasure craft and cars, "style" has approximately 0 design influence in large ships. Everyone is honing in on the most hydrodynamic designs and you can't copyright the math which describes the curves on a ship.
I'm onboard the Tolteca right now, built in 1954/1955. When we were in drydock, the only difference between this ship and ships built much more recently is the distinct lack of a bulbous bow, and the use of diesel propulsion engines instead of a steam turbine.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
This is exactly right, and is why the US continues to build new nuclear subs at the slowest... possible... rate...
If you are a business, you want your capital returned as soon as possible. If you are a peacetime military, you just want to retain capability in the cheapest possible way. Totally different goals. During WW2, you saw the goals of industry and the military align, and it was kind of breathtaking.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The world's 15 largest ships do emit more sulfur than all the world's automobiles. http://www.gizmag.com/shipping...
However for carbon dioxide they only emit a third as much as all the world's cars.