The ''Prairial'' was a

supertanker An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk cargo, bulk transport of petroleum, oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quant ...

, built in 1979 by

Chantiers de l'Atlantique Chantiers de l'Atlantique is a shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, France. It is one of the world's largest shipyards, constructing a wide range of commercial, naval, and passenger ships. It is located near Nantes, at the mouth of the Loire river and ...

Saint-Nazaire Saint-Nazaire (; ; Gallo: ''Saint-Nazère/Saint-Nazaer'') is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France, in traditional Brittany. The town has a major harbour on the right bank of the Loire estuary, near the Atlantic Ocean ...

for Compagnie Nationale de Navigation. ''Prairial'', which was the fourth and final vessel of

Batillus class supertankers The ''Batillus''-class supertankers were a class of supertanker ships built in France in the late 1970s, with four ships of this class built between 1976 and 1979. Three of the ships were scrapped after less than ten years of oil transport serv ...

(the other three were ''

Batillus ''Batillus'' was a supertanker built in 1976 by Chantiers de l'Atlantique at Saint-Nazaire for the French branch of Shell Oil. The first vessel of the Batillus class, she was, together with her sister ships ''Bellamya, Pierre Guillaumat'' and ''P ...

Bellamya ''Bellamya'' was a supertanker, built in 1976 by Chantiers de l'Atlantique at Saint-Nazaire for the French branch of Shell Oil. She was the second Batillus class supertanker. ''Bellamya'', together with her sister ships ''Batillus, Pierre Guillau ...

'' and ''

Pierre Guillaumat Pierre Guillaumat (5 August 1909 – 28 August 1991) was a Minister of National Education and Minister of the Armies under French President Charles de Gaulle and founder of the Elf Aquitaine oil company in 1967. He was born in La Flèche, Sa ...

''). She was the only ship of that class to have a career longer than ten years, sailing until 2003, although under different names: ''Sea Brilliance'' (1985), ''Hellas Fos'' (1986) and ''Sea Giant'' (1997). She is also distinguished as the third biggest ship ever constructed, surpassed in size only by ''

Seawise Giant TT ''Seawise Giant''—earlier ''Oppama''; later ''Happy Giant'', ''Jahre Viking'', ''Knock Nevis'', and ''Mont''—was a ULCC supertanker that was the longest self-propelled ship in history, built in 1974–1979 by Sumitomo Heavy Industries i ...

'' (later ''Jahre Viking'', ''Happy Giant'', ''Knock Nevis'', and finally ''Mont'') built in 1976 and subsequently lengthened, and her sister ship ''

''. The vessel was completed and commissioned in 1979. As other ships of ''Batillus'' class, she was laid up, arriving at

Vestnes Vestnes is a municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. Vestnes is part of the traditional district of Romsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Vestnes. Other villages in the municipality include Vikebu ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

on April 5, 1983, but was sold and recommissioned in 1985. She was in service under different names and owners until 2003, when she arrived at

Gadani ship-breaking yard Gadani ship-breaking yard is the world's third largest ship breaking yard located across a long beachfront at Gadani, Pakistan. The yard consists of 132 ship-breaking plots."Record 107 ships dismantled at Gaddani" by Parvaiz Ishfaq Rana, ''Dawn' ...

in order to be scrapped.

Technical data

Length overall __NOTOC__ Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, an ...

was 414.22 m,

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...

63.05 m,

draft Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vessel ...

28.60 m,

deadweight tonnage Deadweight tonnage (also known as deadweight; abbreviated to DWT, D.W.T., d.w.t., or dwt) or tons deadweight (DWT) is a measure of how much weight a ship can carry. It is the sum of the weights of cargo, fuel, fresh water, ballast water, provi ...

555,046 (however, if she were loaded to the same

freeboard In sailing and boating, a vessel's freeboard is the distance from the waterline to the upper deck level, measured at the lowest point of sheer where water can enter the boat or ship. In commercial vessels, the latter criterion measured relativ ...

as the Seawise Giant, at 233 tons/cm., her deadweight tonnage would have been on the order of 604,000 tonnes, unrivaled in maritime history), and

gross tonnage Gross tonnage (GT, G.T. or gt) is a nonlinear measure of a ship's overall internal volume. Gross tonnage is different from gross register tonnage. Neither gross tonnage nor gross register tonnage should be confused with measures of mass or weigh ...

274,826. Propulsion was provided by two propellers each driven by two

Stal-Laval ABB Ltd. is a Swedish-Swiss multinational corporation headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland. The company was formed in 1988 when Sweden's Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget (ASEA) and Switzerland's Brown, Boveri & Cie merged to create ...

steam turbine A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbin ...

s developing a total power of 65,000 Hp. The service speed was 16.7 knots, with fuel consumption of about 330 tonnes of heavy oil per day and fuel enough for 42 days. The cargo was carried in 40

tanks A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine ...

with a total volume of 677,300 m³. They were divided into central and lateral tanks, whose dimensions was designed to reduce considerably the risk of pollution caused by collision or grounding. Ahead of the international standards of the time, the wing tanks had a maximum unit volume not exceeding 17,000 m³, which was reduced to 9,000 m³ in the most vulnerable parts of ship.

References

External links

''Prairial'' at Auke Visser´s International Super Tankers

Article "Le Marin" du 5 juillet 1996

Promašene investicije u pomorstvu - Vijesnik Online
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prairal Ships built in France 1979 ships Tankers of France Oil tankers

Technical data

See also

References

External links