- [Narrator] All around the world, ships in all sectors
are seriously sizing up. With competing companies
racing to build bigger, better, and bulkier vessels, these mega machines have become modern marvels of
engineering, like this one, which is almost 20 times
taller than that truck, and this one which is so huge, it can carry an entire
fleet of other ships! Wanna find out more about
these colossal craft? Then you're gonna wanna
stick around, matey! (electricity buzzing)
(playful music) - Ah! - [Narrator] Supersized container ship. To start off our search, let's
head over to South Korea, where the record-breaking HMM Algeciras was launched back in 2020. This incredible container ship can carry almost 24,000
containers on its huge deck, which measures in 1,312 feet
long and over 200 feet wide. That's almost the same size as four football fields laid end to end! Although, you wouln't be able to throw a pigskin around on this deck, because it's usually loaded with standard eight-foot containers arranged in rows of 24 across. And when all of these
are fully stacked up, they can reach a staggering 109 feet high! So, with space for all those containers, what can the HMM Algeciras
lug over the lofty seas? Well, in a single voyage, it can transport more than
8.35 million microwave ovens, 223 million bananas, or if you prefer your comparisons
with a little more sole, 386 million pairs of shoes! While all these impressive numbers make it the largest ship
of its kind right now, it won't be for long. Two brand new container ships, each able to carry an
immense 24,232 containers, are being constructed in
China's shipyards as I speak! They're expected to set
sail some time in 2023, but until then, the HMM Algeciras remains the undisputed
king of container ships! Now if facts like this
really float your boat, why not cruise that cursor of yours over to those like and subscribe buttons and give them a quick click? All done? Great! Now that we're in ship
shape, let's dive back in. (air whooshing)
Colossal construction vessel. Often decked out in cranes, oil pipelines, and even oil rig topsides, the iconic twin-hulls
of the Pioneering Spirit make transporting these massive
loads look like easy work! At 1,253 feet long and 407 feet wide, this supersized ship is considered to be the largest construction
vessel in the world. It's so huge that, if it
were tipped on its side, it would be both taller and
wider than the Eiffel Tower. And like that wasn't amazing enough, the Pioneering Spirit
would have no problem hoisting up the 10,100-ton tower, because its lift capacity
reaches a phenomenal 48,000 tons! In fact, it's so powerful that in 2017, it broke the record for the
largest single-lift at sea by removing the 24,000-ton
Brent Delta platform topsides. That's more than six and a half times what that fancy French tower weighs! Now, lifting things on land
is a pretty simple process, as many machines can be grounded and counterweighted with ease. But marine lifting vessels
require complex engineering to ensure the vessel and its
cargo don't suddenly capsize! And that's where the
semi-submersible secret of the Pioneering Spirit comes into play. By partially submerging itself up to 88 feet below the waterline, it can slip its hulls
underneath both sides of an oil rig topside. Centralizing the topside like this before cutting and lifting
the entire installation reduces the chance of the ship capsizing from the swinging motion
of top-heavy cranes. And by spreading the weight
over those two hulking hulls, the ship can install or remove topsides even when faced with
waves over 11 feet tall. As you can see, the Pioneering Spirit makes astoundingly light work
of these massive removals, before sailing away with
its huge hauls safely and ingeniously secured on board! (air whooshing)
World's widest ship. At first glance, anyone
looking at this ship might be mistaken for thinking
it had been sliced in half. But don't let it fool you, because this is the full
size of the Ramform Titan. Though what it lacks in length,
it makes up for in width. At 229 feet wide, this
triangle-shaped-ship has a back end, or stern,
to use its nautical name, wider than any other
single-hulled ship in the world. Unfortunately, its odd proportions have also earned it the title
of ugliest ship in the world. Although people wouldn't call it that if they knew what all that
junk in its trunk was for. You see, the Ramform
Titan is a seismic vessel used to detect and measure geological formations on the seabed. It manages this incredible feat by dragging 24 separate streamer cables lined with complex sensors
over the tops of the waves. These are stored on a
series of gigantic winches at the ship's stern, but when they're fully unraveled, each one is longer than 39,000 feet! So, when they're spread
over the water like this, they can cover an area that's over four and a
half square miles in size! This data then builds a
comprehensive 3D survey of the seabed below, the formations of which can
indicate if gas or oil fields lay hidden in the deep dark depths. But why does the Ramform
Titan need to be so wide? Well, like the Pioneering Spirit, its extra width helps the ship stay stable in adverse weather, so it can gather clearer data from all those thousands of sensors. Its big behind also
allows it to tow all 24 of those giant streamers without the risk of getting them tangled. So, this ship may not be the
prettiest thing on the waves, but why would it need beauty
when it's got all that booty! (air whooshing)
World's longest ship. If someone were to make a big-budget movie about the adventures of the
aptly named Seawise Giant, no one would believe it to be true. It would be a sensational
story of the largest ship ever built being bombed, sunk, and then rescued from
the bottom of the oceans to serve on the seas once again! Doesn't sound real, right? Well, originally built back in 1979, this crude oil tanker
underwent an extensive two-year refitting to become
the largest ship in the world. Just how big did this make it? Well, its rudder weighed
a colossal 208 tons, it could carry over 565,000 tons of cargo, and it reached a
staggering 1,503 feet long. If it had been propped up on one end, it would've been taller than
the Empire State Building! With all that size on its side, The Seawise Giant could transport approximately 4.2 million
barrels of crude oil at a time. For perspective, the same amount of water takes about four minutes to
plunge over Niagara Falls! Or, for a deeper comparison, that's about 270 Olympic swimming pools filled to the brim with oil. But when it was fully
laden with all that oil, it sat more than 80 feet
below the water line. This means it was so
heavy it couldn't pass through the English
Channel or Panama Canal, because its lack of maneuverability threatened to beach the
ship on the shallow seabed! But it wasn't this that
ended up sinking it. Back in 1988, during the Iran-Iraq war, the tanker was callously bombed and sank into the shallow
waves of the Iranian coast. But it was just too precious to leave rotting on the ocean floor, so it was miraculously salvaged, repaired, and renamed the Happy Giant. I mean, who wouldn't be happy to have a second shot at life like that? Once the two extensive years
of repairs were complete, it was sold and renamed
as the Jahre Viking. Then, in 2004, it was sold
yet again to First Olsen, who renamed it, one final
time, as The Knock Nevis. The tremendous tale finally
came to close in 2009, more than 40 years after
it was first built, when the tanker was eventually
decommissioned and scrapped. Whoa, after all that
drama, the Seawise Giant makes the Titanic look
like a drop in the ocean! (air whooshing)
Brilliant bulk carriers. When it comes to vessels
that carry non-liquid cargos, like heavy iron ore, there's
only one class of ship that really puts the ore in more. The Valemax fleet are a class
of very large ore carriers owned by the Brazilian
mining company Vale S.A. The largest ship in the fleet, known as the MS Ore Brasil, measures in at almost 1,200 feet in length and more than 213 feet wide. This colossal steel ship
has seven separate holds which are each the size
of an entire tennis court. In one voyage, it can
transport 11,150 trucks worth of iron ore from
Brazil all the way to China! But with all that ore on board, it can't get there all that quickly. With a top speed of just 15.4 knots, or nearly 18 miles per hour for those of you who
prefer roads to oceans, it takes around 45 days to
reach its Asian destination. But just because ships of
this size don't go super fast doesn't mean they can't crash. Unfortunately, one such ship,
called the Shinyo Sawako, tragically proved this back in 2008. At nearly 1,070 feet
long and 185 feet wide, it was only a little smaller
than the MS Ore Brasil. The bulk carrier was traveling across the high seas off southern Japan when it suddenly collided
with the Lurong Yu 2177. Even though neither vessel was traveling at a breakneck speed, the little vessel didn't stand a chance against the mighty hull of the Sawako and it was all but destroyed! After the tanker was
rescued by a salvage team, it was revealed that 16 crew
members from the Lurong Yu had tragically been sent
to sleep with the fishes. It just goes to show
that out in the ocean, size really does matter. (air whooshing)
Frightful fishing factory. Some super-sized ships start out with a bright and promising
future ahead of them, but it can all take an ugly turn depending on what they're used for. And no ship knows that better
than the 45,000-ton oil tanker once named the Freeport Chief. Built in Russia back in
1980, this 750-feet long, 105-feet wide vessel was
a moderately sized tanker with a decent service history. The vessel was hauled
into a Chinese shipyard where $100 million was spent converting it into a huge floating fish factory. Renamed the Lafayette, the old tanker had been completely
redesigned to suck up fish from attendant trawlers
with a massive hose before freezing them into huge blocks. They were held in the ship's
232 massive vertical freezers, which could freeze a
whopping 1,500 tons of fish in just 24 hours! If it worked every day, it had the capacity to
process 547,000 tons of fish, making it the largest floating
fish factory in the world. It seemed like an ingenious way
to repurpose the old tanker, but there was a huge catch. The Lafayette was operating illegally. Its army of trawlers were
plundering the South American seas and overfishing Pacific mackerel, but their suspicious movements put them in the cross hairs of
the Peruvian Government. In a stunning blow, the
Lafayette was declared an illegal, unreported, unregulated ship, which is government talk for pirate ship, and were slapped with
a huge $800,000 fine. Though, instead of paying up, the ship's name sneakily
changed to the Damanzaihao, and it continued its illicit operations. But this exceedingly
dumb plan wasn't enough to hide it from the authorities. In 2018, the giant ship
made waves in the media after federal agents
boarded the Damanzaihao while it was in a Peruvian
port and detained the vessel. It cost the ship a
further $570,000 in fines and it was banned entirely
from entering Peruvian waters. Hopefully, that'll
teach any future pirates not to mess with the South
American's mackerel ever again! (air whooshing) Humungous heavy transport vehicles. It may not seem possible for a single ship to transport over 73,000
tons of cargo all at once, but I assure you, with the Boskalis MV Blue
Marlin, it absolutely is! At 712 feet long and 138 feet wide, this heavy transport
vessel boasts a deck area bigger than a full soccer field, and it puts every last inch to good use! It was built back in 2000
to lug around oil rigs, aircraft carriers, and
even other cargo ships. So, once it's loaded with all
those other shipping ships, this ship becomes a shipping
ship that ships shipping ships! Oh god, my poor brain! Although, that's nothing
compared to the headache the Marlin's designers
must have suffered from. In order to load up huge
shipments like these, the designers decided to
remove the bow, stern, and even the sides of the ship so that she could transport
huge items with overhang. But accommodating massive cargo
was only half the problem, after all, most cargo
this size is far too heavy to be lifted by the
world's strongest cranes. To solve this, engineers built
in a revolutionary feature, a semi-submersible system! When loading, the ship
partially submerges its deck up to 33 feet underwater so that the cargo can be floated on top. The six huge, water filled
ballast tanks on either side are then emptied and
the deck floats back up with its cargo lifted on board. But if you thought the
Blue Marline was big, get ready to feast your eyes on its much bigger
brother, The BOKA Vanguard. Able to carry an incredible 117,000 tons, and with a deck that's astoundingly 70% larger than the Marlin's, it dwarfs the Marlin in
both capacity and size. So, while the Marlin
was busy shipping ships, the Vanguard was breaking world records by transporting an entire fish farm measuring almost 1300 by 200 feet. That made this 36,000-ton fish farm the largest cargo ever to be
transported by a sea vessel. Damn, that's so big, it makes
the Blue Marlin look cute! (air whooshing)
Perplexing passenger ships. Cruise ships today are so large, they've practically
become floating cities. But they didn't always
start out this huge. Back in 2004, the iconic Queen Mary two revved up her four near 217-ton engines and set sail on her maiden
voyage from Southampton, England. When she launched, this
transatlantic ocean liner was the largest of her kind, reaching a colossal 1,132 feet long. That makes her about as
long as 10 Boeing 737's lined up from nose to tail. But it isn't just length that she boasts. At 232 feet high, she holds
a huge 17 separate decks, complete with 1,310
staterooms, seven restaurants, and even five swimming pools! Altogether, this means she can accommodate up to 3,090 guests and
more than 1,250 crew, making her more of a massive
ocean hotel than a ship. But it's the view below the waterline that really shows you just
how big this liner is. The four propulsors that
hang off the ship's stern, that's the back of the ship for people that don't speak sailor, hold huge propellors that
measure almost 20 feet across. And if that wasn't enough to put its gargantuan
size into perspective, here's the bottom of the
ship next to one of London's famous 16-foot tall double-decker buses. That driver clearly took
a wrong turn somewhere. But all this size didn't come cheap. At the time, the Queen Mary 2 cost approximately 550,000
million pounds to build, which is a staggering $1
billion in today's moula! Although, that's nothing compared
to the biggest cruise ship currently sailing around the world, The Symphony of the Seas. At 1,188 feet long, 238 feet
tall, and 154 feet wide, the largest passenger ship on Earth cost a colossal $1.35 billion
to build back in 2016. With an amazing 230,000 gross tonnage, that is to say, its
overall internal volume, this luxury liner can carry
a whopping 5,600 guests and almost 2,400 crew. That's over 3,650 more people than the Queen Mary 2 could
shuttle across the seas. And, as you'd expect,
there's absolutely nothing that you could call small. With 18 decks hosting 22 restaurants, 42 bars, theaters, an ice rink, and even the world's tallest slide at sea, it's more like a sideways
skyscraper than a ship. But with all that junk in the trunk, this mammoth vehicle can only
reach a top speed of 22 knots, which is little more than
25 miles per hour at best. Well, she may not be speedy, but I guess that's why
they call it a cruise ship and not a rocket ship. (air whooshing)
Amazing aircraft carriers. Aircraft carriers have
been symbols of naval power and prestige for decades, and the bigger they are, the
more intimidating they look. But while some, like
the USS Lexington here, look terrifyingly large, none can compete with the sheer
size of the USS Enterprise. No, not the fictional flying starship, but the longest navy vessel ever built. At 1,123 feet long, if the
Enterprise stood on its end, it would be more than 100 feet taller than London's famous Shard building. Launched all the way back in 1961, she was designed to
carry up to 90 aircraft, along with 4,600 crew on board. Her flight deck had almost four and a half
acres of usable space, which is about the same amount of area as two and a half soccer pitches. Although this ship was much more than a glorified sports pitch. At the time it was commissioned, it was the only aircraft
carrier to be nuclear powered, and eight separate reactors drove the four massive
propellors on either side. These allowed the carrier to reach a top speed of just over 33 knots, or if you prefer your rates
a little more grounded, almost 38 miles per hour. Truly, this vessel was one of a kind, although she wasn't meant to be. The Enterprise Carrier
class was originally meant to consist of six other sister ships, however, its escalating construction costs put a quick end to that radioactive dream. That's because this colossal
carrier took three years and approximately $451.3
million to construct on its own. That may not sound like much compared to the previously
mentioned cruise ships, but that was back in 1961. Today, inflation puts that figure at a gut-busting $3.9 billion. Yes, that's billion with a capital B! Fortunately, the U.S. Navy
really got their money's worth, and Enterprise served as a
part of the fleet for 56 years until it was decommissioned in 2017. It had a good run, but I guess it was time this ship faced its final frontier. (air whooshing)
Undetectable destroyers. Despite what it looks like, no, that's not a Star Destroyer
gliding through the water. That uniquely angular
vessel is the USS Zumwalt, a guided missile destroyer
that was first commissioned by the U.S. Navy back in 2016. Now, compared to the classic silhouettes of other naval destroyers, such as the Arleigh
Burke and Kidd classes, you might be wondering why the Zumwalt looks more like a floating pyramid. That's because this
state-of-the-art destroyer is designed, above all else, for stealth. You see, radar systems detect objects by sending out bursts of radio energy. When this energy hits an object, it's then reflected back to the radar, relaying how far away and
what size the object is. Now, most metal, sea-faring
vessels have a rounded design, which makes them very
efficient radar reflectors. However, stealth ships like these incorporate plenty of sharp
angles into their designs so that radio signals are
reflected away from the radar, making them much harder to detect, so much harder, in fact, that the Zumwalt is an astonishing
50 times harder to spot on a radar than a regular destroyer, and that's despite its colossal size. At 610 feet long and nearly 81 feet wide, this thing is a phenomenal 40% larger than the US's current
Arleigh Burke destroyers, making it the largest Naval
destroyer in the world. Originally, the US wanted to build 32 of these incredible
ships, with $9.6 billion set aside for their
research and development. However, construction costs for the ships were vastly underestimated, so this number was reduced
down to just three. Even so, with research and
development expenses on top, the ships cost an outrageous
$7.5 billion to complete each! That's more than five and a half times what the colossal Symphony
of the Seas cost to build! Well, the Zumwalt may not be the biggest thing out on the ocean, but it's certainly one
of the most expensive. Though it does make me wonder
what stealthy Navy vessels are going to look like in the future. Maybe they'll end up with more angles inside and out than a diamond. Or will they find a way
to become completely 2D? What do you think? Let me know down in the comments. (air whooshing)
The unparalleled Prelude. When it comes down to sheer size, there's one vessel that really looks like it's going for the title
of biggest ship in the world. Although, despite all
its floating features, it isn't really a ship,
it's called Prelude, a floating liquefied natural
gas, or FLNG, platform. At more than 1600 feet
long and 240 feet wide, this impossibly vast
vessel was constructed using more steel than the entire
World Trade Center complex. Not only that, but even its height, which is arguably its
least impressive metric, still makes it taller than
London's iconic Big Ben! Or, if you like your comparisons
a little more American, that makes it taller than
The Statue of Liberty. Although, unlike these monuments, this platform doesn't just
sit around looking pretty! It floats out to underwater gas fields and is secured to the seafloor
with massive mooring chains. These are made up of
more than 25,000 links and are some of the largest
chains in the world. These are attached to a central turret, which allows the ship to rotate like a weathervane in adverse weather. Once secured to the seafloor,
the facility then draws up and produces liquid natural gas
and other petroleum products from the gas fields below. Currently, it's installed
atop Browse Basin, 330 miles off the Australian coastline, where it works to dredge up about 3.6 million tons
of liquid gas every year. But just how much can it carry in one go? Well, it has the capacity to process a staggering 175 Olympic swimming pools worth of liquified gas! And this is done over a deck that's longer than four
soccer fields laid end to end! But while it does have
three incredibly powerful, 6,700 horsepower thrusters
to help position it, it doesn't have any kind
of propulsion system. That means it technically
classes as a barge rather than a ship, so it relies on a series of tugboats to sail it into position. Now, don't be fooled, the Prelude may look like any other large barge in
comparison to those tiny tugs, but each one is a whopping 250 feet long. And the Prelude needs
all the help it can get, because when fully loaded, the floating facility
weighs about the same as six of the largest aircraft carriers. Now, it might be a tight fit, but it looks like
humanity has finally built a boat large enough to carry your mom! - Damn!
- Damn! - [Narrator] Which of
these impressive vessels do you most want to sail across the sea? Or have you been lucky enough to step foot on one of them already? Let me know down in the comments below, and thanks for watching! (playful music)
