The Pioneering Spirit, the largest ship in the world! by Jaap van den Berg

The Pioneering Spirit, the largest ship in the world!

The Pioneering Spirit is a vessel of the Swiss-Dutch offshore company Allseas. It was built at DSME in South Korea and is registered under Maltese flag.

With a length of 382 metres and a width of 124 metres it is the largest vessel in the world. With these dimensions, it is as large as two supertankers and equal in area to eight football fields. Already in 1987 the concept for the ship was presented. The plan then was to connect two supertankers and deploy the new vessel for the dismantling of large offshore platforms. However, the market for a profitable use turned out to be too small at the time.

On 24 October 2008, Allseas announced that construction had been delayed as a result of the credit crisis. In June 2010, Allseas placed the construction order with Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in South Korea.

The Pioneering Spirit can lift large platforms of up to 48,000 tonnes from their pedestals in one go, rather than transporting them in smaller pieces. The vessel can also lay pipelines with diameters ranging from 6 to 68 inches for oil and gas transport at depths of up to 3,500 metres at a speed of more than seven kilometres a day.

The vessel was brought from the shipyard in Korea to Rotterdam in 2014 for completion. On 8 January 2015, it arrived in Alexiahaven on the Second Maasvlakte and anchored there. Due to the ship's draft, additional dredging was carried out in the harbour. At the b