The really interesting thing about these vessels are the insulated holds. Knocked my socks off when I found out they were built around wooden panels - I kid you not. Wood because it's almost thermally neutral. It doesn't expand and contract as much as other materials. Quality control on the holds is space engineering quality. I wouldn't be surprised if the materials aren't out of China ( they're knocking out local build LPG ships like hell . . .sto . .err acquired the tech from Finland. Lloyd's do the QA check on them.)

Alas . . .i shall have to buy Samsung phones here on out, even the new Apple 5c screens are too small for my fumbling fingers and failing eyesight.

Saw the time lapse fillum of them floating this thing. Amazing pictures. Longer than the empire state building is tall by a fair margin.

I reckon you could sell tickets for a 'ride' on this thing when a big cyclone blows through.

South Korea has a significant shipbuilding industry. They've also been fielding their own helicopter carriers which could be converted to use F-35Bs in the future.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROKS_Dokdo_(LPH-6111)

Respects,

Murph

On the Outer Marches

Big as things are, bigger things get level'd in big storms, and especially with lots of things around that want 'bang'... and not in a good way.

Had some friends that went for a swim when this sucker went down.

http://articles.latimes.com/1991-08-16/news/mn-609_1_hong-kong

any one else concerned that this thing is called ' Prelude' definition "an action or event serving as an introduction to something more important".

except in the case of the car the Honda Prelude that was folowed by nothing of significance.

Given how big this thing is I am worried what is to follow 'the prelude'.

Fk it, I'm stickin a LNG fueled rocket motor on the back of that baby, that should get me into orbit!

Reminds me of the time I was visiting Hitachi Data Systems in Santa Clara in the 90s, looking at competing mainframe suppliers. It was pre-CMOS technology at the high end and the MOSFET chips of the time had real heat issues. Both HDS and Amdahl iirc had gone back to self-contained liquid cooling (IBM still used external chilled water) from air cooling solutions.

Anyway, the HDS dude was showing me the new machines and talking up their new cooling system. “Of course you need to have reliable pumps to drive this stuff (sterilised water) around. Being part of Hitachi, we just had to ask our colleagues in the nuclear powerplant division to nominate a suitable unit.” Snappy sales patter to be sure, but an effective reminder of just how big and generally capable some of the major Asian companies are.

Personally I don't understand why it isn't submersible....

"I've seen bigger"

gimmie a fkn TOW missile or a fkn Javelin!......

I've heard many stories from panic-stricken government officials (rightly) worrying about the end of the mining construction boom in recent years, like when a bunch of pre-fabricated Korean wharves that appeared literally overnight in the Pilbara caused a rethink of how labour-intensive is the supposedly labour-intensive phase of the boom. But this takes it to another level.

I've heard many stories from panic-stricken government officials (rightly) worrying about the end of the mining construction boom in recent years, like when a bunch of pre-fabricated Korean wharves that appeared literally overnight in the Pilbara caused a rethink of how labour-intensive is the supposedly labour-intensive phase of the boom. But this takes it to another level.

Most ships have their size dictated by the need to fit through the Panama canal. The so called 'Panamax' is the biggest size with less than 10m clearance either side when it goes through I think. These vessels have no such restrictions on their size so it may well be this is just the prelude to larger things.

Imagine if that thing was tasked with doing something useful like brewing beer. The world woul be a far happier place.