The Knock Nevis is a floating storage and offloading unit (FSO) owned by the Norwegian company Fred Olsen Production.[1] It 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. The ship has a draft of 24.6 m (81 ft) when fully loaded, which means it is unable to navigate the English Channel, the Suez Canal or the Panama Canal.
Replenishment ships, known as oilers in the United States and fleet tankers in Commonwealth countries, are ships that can provide oil products to naval vessels while on the move. This process, known as underway replenishment, extends the length of time a naval vessel can stay at sea, as well as her effective range. Prior to underway replenishment, naval vessels had to enter a port or anchor to take on fuel. In addition to fuel, replenishment ships may also deliver water, ammunition, rations, stores and personnel.
An Ore-bulk-oil carrier, also known as combination carrier or OBO, is a ship designed to be capable of carrying wet or dry cargoes. The idea is to reduce the number of empty (ballast) voyages, in which large ships only carry a cargo one way and return empty for another. These are a feature of the larger bulk trades (e.g. crude oil from the Middle East, iron ore and coal from Australia, South Africa and Brazil). Combination carriers found themselves specialising in one trade or the other, and their flexibility went very much unused. Very few were built after the 1980s, and the idea has rather fallen out of fashion. One of the more famous OBOs was the Derbyshire MV Derbyshire of 180,000 deadweight tonnes, which in September 1980 became the largest British ship ever lost at sea. It sank in a Pacific typhoon while carrying a cargo of iron ore from Sept-Îles in Canada to Japan.
A fleet of smaller, "river-sized" (several thousand tonnes) ore-bulk-oil carriers have been used for some decades on European Russia's waterways, primarily by Volgotanker. The Russian word for 'ore-bulk-oil carrier', nefterudovoz (нефтерудовоз, literally 'oil/ore carrier'), in combination with a number, is often used as a proper name for a ship, e.g. Nefterudovoz-51M'.
Ocean-going chemical tankers generally range from 5,000 metric tons deadweight (DWT) to 40,000 DWT in size, which is considerably smaller than the average size of other tanker types due to the specialised nature of their cargoes and the size restrictions of the port terminals where they call to load and discharge.
Chemical tankers normally have a series of separate cargo tanks which are either coated with specialised coatings such as phenolic epoxy or zinc paint, or made from stainless steel. The coating or cargo tank material determines what types of cargo a particular tank can carry: stainless steel tanks are required for aggressive acid cargoes such as sulfuric and phosphoric acid, while 'easier' cargoes - e.g. vegetable oil - can be carried in epoxy coated tanks.
An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil. There are two basic types of oil tankers: the crude tanker and the product tanker.[2] Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined crude oil from its point of extraction to refineries.[2] Product tankers, generally much smaller, are designed to move petrochemicals from refineries to points near consuming markets.
Oil tankers are often classified by their size as well as their occupation. The size classes range from inland or coastal tankers of a few thousand metric tons of deadweight (DWT) to the mammoth supertankers of 550,000 DWT. Tankers move approximately 2 billion metric tons of oil every year.[3][4] Second only to pipelines in terms of efficiency,[4] the average cost of oil transport by tanker amounts to only two or three United States cents per gallon.[4]
Some specialized types of oil tankers have evolved. One of these is the naval replenishment oiler, a tanker which can fuel a moving vessel. Combination ore-bulk-oil carriers and permanently moored floating storage units are two other variations on the standard oil tanker design. Oil tankers have been involved in a number of damaging and high-profile oil spills. As a result, they are subject to stringent design and operational regulations.
The term Seawaymax refers to vessels which are the maximum size that can fit through the canal locks of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Seawaymax vessels are 740 feet (226 m) in length, 78 feet (24 m) wide, and have a draft of 26 feet (7.92 m). A number of lake freighters larger than this size cruise the Great Lakes and cannot pass through to the Atlantic Ocean. The size of the locks limits the size of the ships which can pass and so limits the size of the cargoes they can carry. The record tonnage for one vessel on the Seaway is 28,502 tons of iron ore while the record through the larger locks of the Great Lakes Waterway is 72,351 tons. Most new lake vessels, however, are constructed to the Seawaymax limit to enhance versatility by allowing the possibility of off-Lakes use. SS Edmund Fitzgerald, famous for her wreck in 1975, was constructed close to Seawaymax size. As of 2006 there were at least 28 vessels in service which were too large to leave the Lakes.
The TI Class of ships are the four largest double-hulled supertankers in the world, and as of 2004 became the largest ocean going ships since the previous largest, the single hulled supertanker Knock Nevis was converted to a permanently moored floating storage and offloading unit (FSO). The class comprises the ships TI Africa, TI Asia, TI Europe and TI Oceania, where the "TI" refers to the VLCC Tanker Pool operator Tankers International L.L.C. The class were the first ULCCs (Ultra-large crude carrier) to be built for 25 years[1]. All four oil tankers were constructed by shipping company Hellespont in South Korea's Daewoo yard in 2002/3. The class was originally named the Hellespont Alhambra, Hellespont Fairfax, Hellespont Metropolis and Hellespont Tara. In 2004 the class was jointly purchased. Overseas Shipholding Group (OSG) purchased Hellespont Fairfax and Hellespont Tara, renaming them TI Oceania and TI Africa respectively (flagged for the Marshall Islands[2]). Euronav NV, a Belgian shipowner, purchased Hellespont Alhambra and Hellespont Metropolis and renamed them TI Asia and TI Europe respectively (flagged Belgium[2]).
The class possess a relatively high service speed (16.5 knots laden, 17.5 knots in ballast), which increases their earning capacity. The steel scantlings are greater than the class minimum.
The coatings in the ballast tanks are protected by two features, a full time double-scrubbing system supplying drier inert gas to the ballast tanks, and also by the white painted upper hull reflecting the sun’s energy. The inert gas system also increases safety. Keeping down the cargo temperatures also minimizes hydrocarbon emissions[1].
Hellespont Fairfax was the subject of an episode of The Discovery Channel's television show Superships[1], entitled "Launching a Leviathan—Hellespont Fairfax".
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