World's Largest Ship Floated For the First Time

Zothecula writes "A ship with a hull longer than the Empire State Building is tall has been floated out of dry dock in Geoje, South Korea. Measuring 488 m (1,601 ft) long and 74 m (243 ft) wide, the hull belongs to Shell's Prelude floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility, which upon completion will be the largest floating facility ever built."

Re:Taunt the seasteaders.

[SuricouRaven]

It's a movement that aims to escape the reach of existing governments by setting up semi-autonomous permanent settlements at sea. A mixture of libertarian idealists ('A place free from overgrown government, where the right of individuals to live free is valued!') and free market enterprise idealists ('A place where we can locate our call centers and offices free from taxation, minimum wage, health and safety and working hours regulations.').

The only group with a halfway-viable business plan are Blueseed, who hope to use their ship as a legal workaround for US immigration law - station it just in international water, allowing people 'visiting' the country on a tourist visa to commute by ferry and technically not be illegally working in the US. It's not attracted enough investment, because it's a high-risk venture: Even if the ship works and is financially viable, it's likely the government would act quickly to change the law and close this 'loophole.'

Re:amazing indeed

[WWJohnBrowningDo]

Do you even know how offshore natural gas is processed?

Natural gas is pressurized at the offshore platform and pumped all the way to the shore using a long pipeline. Then an onshore LNG processing plant cleans and liquefies it and pump it back out to LNG tankers.

This thing is designed to replace the long undersea pipeline and the onshore LNG processing plant and its associated dock. One of the reasons why this monstrosity is being built is precisely because it's more environmentally friendly than the alternative. A single offshore facility can replace multiple onshore facilities since the offshore facility is mobile.

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Re: Technically it is not a ship...

[Joce640k]

Barges can also have their own propulsion, for example the river homes that people pilot around the canals here in the UK are barges.

Those things were pulled by horses when they started out, hence "barges".

Adding a motor made them into "boats".

Re:Worlds biggest shipyards

[ickleberry]

Apparently at the Samsung shipyard this thing was built in, it's a good month if nobody dies in an accident that month. At least that's how it was in 2006 when they had almost made it a month without anyone getting killed, then 2 lads decided to fall to their deathsfrom a crane.