
The largest vessel the world has ever seen - sjcsjc
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30394137
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nickkline
Pretty sure this is the Prelude:
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/%EA%B1%B0%EC%A0%9C%EC%8B%9...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/%EA%B1%B0%EC%A0%9C%EC%8B%9C+%EA%B3%A0%ED%98%84%EB%8F%99+%EA%B1%B0%EC%A0%9C%EB%8F%84/@34.9118033,128.6007412,1879a,20y,270h/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x356ecd6fa8cc1edd:0xc0cad7f7fac90992)

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clarkmoody
Great spot!

The giant pivot-hole in the bow seems to confirm, as well as the size...

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michaelcampbell
And the first word of the second paragraph being "Prelude" was a pretty good
clue, too.

~~~
JshWright
The 'this' the OP was referring to was the vessel in the Google Maps link they
posted.

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onion2k
That really is an incredible achievement. It's 1/3 of a mile long. Travelling
at the speed of sound you'd take 1.4 seconds to go from the bow to the stern.
You'd only need 82,000 of these ships to encircle the Earth at the equator.
It's 203 times bigger than the largest natural sea creature (a Blue Whale),
and more than 3000 times heavier.

Bit of a shame it's dedicated to continuing our use of fossil fuels really.

~~~
melling
"Bit of a shame it's dedicated to continuing our use of fossil fuels really."

Well, I guess the onus is on us to greatly reduce our use of fossil fuels.
They're doing their part to more efficiently meet our demand. We can't help
but be happy when gas gets cheap then we can buy large vehicles again.

[http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/12/02/automake...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/12/02/automakers
--monthly-sales-november-ford-gm-chrysler-toyota-honda-nissan/19760173/)

~~~
anigbrowl
True, but I'd rather another LNG field than another coal mine or crude
refinery. As fossil fuels go, natural gas is the least bad option.

~~~
melling
Unfortunately, companies don't create more LNG fields and fewer refineries
because people on the internet understand that it's a cleaner solution. It's
about supply and demand. Our choice in the cars we drive has more of a vote.

------
Someone
Is it the largest? Longest, yes, but
[http://www.oedigital.com/energy/item/571-the-new-
leviathan](http://www.oedigital.com/energy/item/571-the-new-leviathan) claims

 _" Excluding any protruding lift equipment, the new vessel will be 382m long
[...]. Shell's Prelude FLNG facility [...] will be 488m long. But it is the
plan view of these vessels that is the more telling in terms of displacement.
Pieter Schelte will be 117m wide, against Prelude's 74m"_

That is 50% wider and 25% shorter. Height, I couldn't find. Prelude is
bulkier, though (the Pieter Schelte is a catamaran)

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bluedino
Just as amazing as the ship, I'm in awe at the mazes of pipes, scaffolding,
cranes, etc. Just think that teams of people had to design and lay all those
structures out, and teams of more people had to cut and weld all those
together.

~~~
drdeadringer
Also the scheduling of it all; when building ships, there are things which
must be done be for others such as welding in parts A,D,L before piece C is
installed because if piece C is installed first, parts A,D,L can't be
installed due to new physical access restrictions. It's a coordination master-
work all by itself.

~~~
wmoser
You would think so, but having worked on a ship built at SHI there is still a
lot of installing part c, cutting it out, installing A, D, and L and then
reinstalling C.

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paulftw
I think having a huge plant on a ship means they can staff it with workers
from 3rd world countries without worrying about Australian visas, employment
laws, etc. It's not uncommon for local miners to earn north of $200k per year.

I was on cruise around Queensland last year - ship never left Australian
waters, yet all crew was from Asia and they had a casino on board. Prettty
sure it'd be illegal to open a gambling venue like that on the soil

~~~
D_Alex
>I think having a huge plant on a ship means they can staff it with workers
from 3rd world countries

FPSOs in Australian waters are crewed with 100% Australian crews.
Unfortunately this means FPSO operators need to deal with the likes of the
Maritime Union of Australia, that makes the Teamsters look reasonable.

~~~
paulftw
I didn't know that. Is that a law, or just the way it's currently done?

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beefman
Prelude will be the world's first operational FLNG. It is somewhat longer and
wider than Knock Nevis, but the fully-loaded displacement will be less. And
Knock Nevis was a ship; Prelude is a floating platform that must be towed.

Pieter Schelte is a ship (under construction). It's shorter than Prelude and
Nevis but, due to twin hulls, much wider and heavier when loaded (displacement
is 900,000 metric tons).

~~~
jzwinck
The first and probably not the last. It reminds me of fish factory ships [1],
where fish are processed at sea rather than being brought back to shore for
processing. What's next? Maybe assembling airplane parts while in transit?

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_ship](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_ship)

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DanielBMarkham
It would be interesting to know whether the ordinary rules of nautical
operation change at a scale like this. For instance, ordinary waves would have
no effect at all on something this size (aside from rocking the structure, of
course). You could probably be in 10-20' swells and it wouldn't any kind of
danger. Rogue waves? A 100' wave would be like normal choppy seas for a small
boat.

The scale is incredible. It's less of a boat and morelike a small metal island
that's self-propelled.

~~~
stoolpigeon
I've been in 80 foot swells on a Nimitz class carrier - tossed it around like
nothing. Dented the bow all in - and did some other damage. I realize this is
quite a bit bigger but I think you underestimate what the ocean could do to
it.

~~~
D_Alex
Really? Who was the silly bugger that sailed the ship into such weather? I
hope the nukes were securely stowed...

~~~
stoolpigeon
We got caught in a rather bad storm working our way from South Korea back to
Alameda. We were in a rush to get back as their had just been a bad earthquake
in the bay area and a lot of people had family there.

As to the second, I cannot confirm or deny.....

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venomsnake
I know my thinking is probably damaged by the war on terror, but my first
thought was "engineering is doable, but how will you secure the thing". It is
a nice juicy target. And as the recent events have shown - even small
tinkering with supply and demand of fossil fuels can have global consequences.

~~~
clarkmoody
Addressing you and some other grandchild comments:

This is why we have a navy, not to mention the supporting apparatus of land-,
sea-, and space-based monitoring of the air and seas.

Unless this thing is placed under a heavily-trafficked air route, attacks from
non-state groups are unlikely to succeed, as the divergent flight-path of a
commercial airliner will set off alarms.

And state actors would be declaring war by attacking this thing.

~~~
demallien
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing)

Divers attaching charges to the hull would be another low-tech way to take a
vessel like this down. Low tech mines would probably do a pretty good job too.

~~~
schwap
That was at port, though. This ship is planned to spend 25 years at sea.
Certainly a ship carrying divers would have to get close enough so as to be
obvious.

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csours
Just make sure the front doesn't fall off. /s

Seriously though, I can't imagine that maintenance will be very easy on this
rig, and you really want your CNG plant to be well maintained and inspected

~~~
samstave
Well, that's not supposed to happen.

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benzofuran
The Browse Basin project was originally going to be onshore - until the
traditional land owners wouldn't release the land for somewhere in the tune
for $3B AUD. Coupled with the budget blowout for the Gorgon Project building
large LNG facilities in Australia will likely not happen again anytime soon.

The Prelude has had a lot of Australian engineering input but based on my
experience working on the maintenance side with other FPSOs (especially those
of Korean and Singaporan manufacture) there will be a lot of headaches with
the Prelude.

Integrity control is at the top of the list for the Prelude design, but this
may go the way of the Gorgon Project in terms of budget once they get it to
the field. Last I heard there are still some issues with the field development
side of things so even if they finish the vessel in time, it may be a while
before production is able to go.

~~~
brc
The way I understood it, the traditional land owners were all too happy to get
the jobs and royalties associated, but were overruled by out-of-town
activists. Is that true or false?

~~~
benzofuran
I've heard a number of different stories on the matter, none that I'd want to
perpetuate too much.

It was more economical to build the world's largest vessel and develop a lot
of new technology than to deal with the issues involved with an onshore
facility - interpret that however you'd like.

~~~
brc
Well, in my book, it's a devastating loss for economic development of people
in dire poverty and the associated social issues that come with that.
Regardless of how it came about.

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hartator
Compared to the Titanic, it's almost twice as big! (Titanic: 269m vs Prelude:
496m)

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VLM
For a good related time, please google for the skyscraper index by Andrew
Lawrence. The TLDR is in a boring commodity market like skyscrapers (... or
boats?) you always get the "worlds biggest" right before a financial collapse.

Anecdotally Parkinson's theory about fancy buildings mean a company is dying
hold true across my decades of telecom experience. So if you look at this as
the fanciest boat ever made not just the largest, Parkinson's theory applies
and that corporation is doomed.

~~~
deathhand
Of course you will get the "worlds biggest" before any sort of collapse. Its
like the same adage when trying to look for something 'it is always the last
place you look'.

~~~
acheron
"I was going to build the world's longest suspension bridge, but then I found
out someone had already done it." \- Jack Handey

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plehoux
I wonder at what price gas needs to be for this to be profitable?

~~~
mabbo
They aren't making more fossil fuels. Wait long enough, just about anything to
extract them efficiently becomes profitable.

~~~
lkrubner
"They aren't making more fossil fuels." \-- Well, they are, just rather
slowly. All the fossil fuels we use now have been created since the Cambrian
and most have been created since the start of the Mesozoic. And if we are
willing to wait another 300 million years, we can have yet another 2 centuries
of vigorous economic growth based on fossil fuel consumption. In fact, we can
probably have 200 good years, every 300 million years, for as long as the
Earth lasts.

~~~
Gravityloss
That's disputed. Carbon storage might have stopped quickly wheen wood
devouring fungi evolved. [http://news.clarku.edu/news/2012/06/28/findings-
point-to-fun...](http://news.clarku.edu/news/2012/06/28/findings-point-to-
fungi-as-prime-suspects-in-fossil-fuel-mystery/)

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zem
for science fiction fans, it's significantly longer than a general products #4
spaceship hull (300m), though the hull being a sphere gives it a greater
volume.

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WayneS
Anyone else read that as "wessel" with a fake Russian accent?

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ourmandave
Don't be so proud of this technological terror you've constructed.

The ability to produce 3.6m tonnes of LNG annually while at sea is, uh, well
that's actually pretty kick ass.

But I'll bet none of the crew have light sabers.

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shalbert
The timing of this debut is hilarious to me. So, they build the largest boat
to increase the exportation of oil but, simultaneously the need for oil is
diminishing. I don't care what forecasters have to say because, at the end of
the day oil prices will definitely continue to sink. It may go up for a while,
but it surely will sink. Renewable energies are taking their market by storm
and destroying the need for the anti-green oil industry. For example, India, a
country that in theory could add extremely large value to oil, is one of the
fastest growing renewable energy markets in the world. Not to mention, other
countries with a smaller potential demand are doing the same. I love the idea
of "the new biggest ship", but it's purpose humours me

~~~
joelwilliamson
Did you read the article? It is producing gas, not oil. It is much easier to
move gas from Australia to China than from North America.

