Meet the largest ship ever built

The Seawise Giant is a Japanese-built supertanker completed in 1979.

Weighing more than 564,000 tonnes and measuring 1,500ft in length, she was the largest ship ever built.

The amazing ocean liner was so vast she couldn't navigate the English Channel and took five miles to slow to a halt.

Attacked by Saddam Hussain's missiles during the Iraq war of 1988 and declared a total write-off, the ship was heaved from the seabed a year later and repaired. The Seawise Giant changed hands six times in total, and served 21 more years after being resurrected before finally being sold for scrap in India in 2010, a task that took thousands of laborers.

The Seawise Giant was completed in 1979 by a shipyard in Kanagawa, Japan. After the Greek shipping magnate who originally ordered it refused to take delivery it was sold to the Chinese founder of Hong Kong Orient Overseas Container Line, C.Y. Tung with the purpose of transporting oil across the ocean.

Not quite satisfied with its already massive size, he had it extended by several feet and added more than 100,000 tonnes to its capacity. By this stage, the rudder alone weighed 230 tonnes, the equivalent of 46 elephants, the propeller 50 tonnes, and the ship itself weighed more than 657,000 tonnes when fully-loaded - making it the largest ship of its kind ever made.