Those were big ships equipped to hunt and process whales. They carried boats to actually hunt and kill the whales, plus the machinery to process the carcass, rendering it into meat and blubber- boiled down into oil.

I've seen some pictures of some of them, they had room to actually drag the carcass into the ship to work on it.

thanks always wondered whether they were so named cause of their size, or cause of what they did.

If my memory is right, whales are like 30m long tops, not so big for a whole ship to handle it. There are recreational yahts 3 times this !

If I remember correctly, Enterprise was originally rated as 80,000 tons normal and 120,000 tons full load.

The Iowa class Battleships were rated at 45,000 tons design, 48,000 tons standard and 57,000 tons full load.

Yamato was 64,000 tons standard.

I think some of the supertankers are rated at over 200,000 tons.

:arrgh!: yaaahar, i bet it be loaded down with jewels and gold yaaahar :arrgh!:

The current heavyweight champ of the shipping world, the Norweigan Jahre Viking clocks in at a portly 260,851 tonnes with a cargo capacity of over 500,000 tonnes.

Ahh yes...definitely the Rosanne Barr of the Shipping Lanes right there. :lol:

Hi

Here's another pic of the Jahre Viking:

http://www.intertanko.com/tankerfacts/sizes/biggest.htm

Is this the same ship that 'swallowed' the subs in The Spy Who Loved Me?
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...r/liparus2.jpg

But then again the actual size can be deceiving ;)
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...er/liparus.jpg