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Largest Sail Ever Built, Perseus^3 A2

Making the world’s largest sail, meet the designer, builder, and cloth supplier of the superyacht perseus^3’s new spinnaker, a sail the size of 10 tennis courts.

“It’s substantially bigger than anything else out there,” says Glenn Cook in a typically measured fashion. The North Sails superyacht sail designer is calling from St Barth, where he’s testing the sail out for the first time, a process he says is both “nerve-racking” and “the best part of the job.”

Because to bring this 2,604 sqm A2 sail to life, it’s taken a lot of people, time, and resources.

In fact, it’s taken a design team in the US, an eight-week custom order from Contender Sailcloth and a team of 10 sailmakers and 2 graphic installers working over 15 days to build this sail.

“The boat was specifically looking for a target area from a rating perspective,” explains Cook. “So the design was driven by that. And because Perseus^3 is a huge boat (her length overall is 58.60m), you can’t turn very quickly and trimming adjustments are also slow, so we looked to make a sail that had a very stable flying shape. Plus the sail has to work across a variety of conditions. The design is more forgiving than you would do on a smaller sail.”

Handling issues drove the design, too: the luff is so long that it can drop into the water when gybing. “We developed a system above the tack to collect the sail and keep it clear of the water during a gybe.”

With no other sail of that size or real benchmark, the chosen base material is a Contender Sailcloth Superkote 350 – the top of their offering – and the ply patching a Superkote 250 to keep some weight off.

“These boats are huge, the loads that are involved are pretty exceptional,” adds cloth supplier Duncan Skinner, President of Contender Sailcloth USA. “We go from a fabric that weighs 32 grams per square meter up to something that weighs 150 grams for the Superkote 350 in this kite. As the weight goes up, the strength goes up and that’s what you need in a sail this size.

“The fiber selection comes first – it’s high-tenacity Nylon. Second, constructions, ie. how many yarns we weave in each direction. Once the fabric is woven, the finishing comes in – that’s the real trick. You have to dye the product first, then finish it. We finish it with a coating process that gives stability and zero porosity to the fabric. A well-proven chemical process that makes fabrics that withstand the kind of loads you see on these giant boats.”

Skinner smiles. “This thing is so big!”

Producing a consistent finish throughout is key to ensure the sail’s uniform performance. “On these big kites, the fabric is specifically engineered so that there is a little bit of elasticity built into it. That way, big shock loads don’t run back through the rigging and the boat itself – the kite absorbs a little bit of it.”

Surprisingly though, it’s the sail’s custom grey color that caused the most headache. “The coloring took us the longest because you can’t take that amount of material and dye it all at the same time. The machines just aren’t that big. You have to pay a lot of attention to the dye formulation and to the timing… and when you look at the kite, it’s pretty damn close! That was also very good on Manolo’s part when assembling the sail.”

Manolo Lastra’s loft in Northern Spain was the last part of this gigantic puzzle.

“It took about eight weeks to receive the material,” says Lastra on the phone, explaining how they ordered around 400 linear meters extra to get the panel color right.

In total, his team received 3,323 linear meters of material divided into 48 rolls, used 3100, plus another 500 meters of the Superkote 250. With 3,500 sqm over three floors, Lastra’s team assembled the different sections step by step. And to fit the cutting tables, the sail has four sections across its foot, where most sails have two.

“Two people were cutting for five days,” says Lastra. “Once cut, the 850 panels were sorted by groups and sent to production to be assembled by sections. Then they went through the sewing machines.”

The parts were sewn separately before being put together. “That’s when we started adding the plies in the corners,” he adds. “That took 10 people and 10 days. Two more people were working on the graphics in parallel.

“Once the sail and graphics were done, it dried for four days, got folded, and shipped to Antigua.”

And it’s on the neighboring Caribbean Island of St Barth that we find Cook testing it out.

“I’m down here sailing with them for the St Barths Bucket this week. It took probably 16 people two hours to unfold the sail and put it into the spinnaker sock.”

At 550 kilos, did he try lifting it?

“We can’t!” he laughs. “We use winches on the boat. We can drag it, but that still takes 10, 15 people to move it.

“It’s big.”

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Boat of the Week: Inside the 7-Year Quest to Build ‘Dream Symphony,’ the World’s Largest Sailboat

Dream symphony may be the most amazing boat we'll never see. years after its owner dropped the project, it sits idle in a turkish shipyard., julia zaltzman, julia zaltzman's most recent stories.

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Size matters: If Dream Symphony is ever completed, it would dwarf the 289-foot Maltese Falcon, currently the world’s fourth-largest sailing yacht.

When Dream Symphony was first announced in 2014, the yachting world was all aflutter. At 462 feet in length, it promised to be not only the largest yacht produced in Turkey, but the largest sailing yacht ever built (except for the sail-assisted motoryacht Sailing Yacht A, which is technically more motorsailer than sailboat).

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Even more incredible is that Dream Symphony was to be constructed entirely out of wood. The use of epoxy laminated iroko (African teak) forms an integral part of boatbuilder Dream Ship Victory’s vision to successfully bring laminated wood into modern shipbuilding. The yard has a successful track record. In 2013, it delivered the 212-foot Mikhail S. Vorontsov , built entirely out of laminated mahogany.

At more than double the length, Dream Symphony is a much larger technical challenge. Of course, the biggest challenge since its announcement seven years ago has been finding an owner—or rather a second owner. After the initial brouhaha about the world’s largest sailboat, Dream Symphony went dark.

The sleek, minimalist hull works well with the yacht’s 462-foot length.  Courtesy Ken Freivokh

“The original owner pulled out when the Ukrainian crisis came about,” Dream Symphony ’s designer Ken Freivokh told Robb Report . “The project went on up to a point, a bit slower, but now we’re looking for a new owner.”

Actually, the project has been stalled. Freivokh shared images of a partially built hull inside the shipyard, and he says it has since progressed, but not to the point where it’s anything resembling his majestic renderings. While gigayachts in the motoryacht segment are being ordered and delivered with regularity, the world’s-largest sailing yacht will require a very special owner.

When—or if —the yacht is completed, it will be worth the wait. Dream Symphony reunites the same A-team that conceived the iconic sailing superyachts, the 350-foot Black Pearl and 289-foot Maltese Falcon . The hull design and engineering were completed by Dykstra Naval Architects, while Freivokh was responsible for the interior and exterior.

“Building the largest sailing yacht is what the shipyard owner has always wanted to achieve,” says Freivokh. The shipyard’s preference for wood is based on the material’s renewable and recyclable properties. But the yard’s principals take it a step farther by asserting that wood produces a vessel of “equal or even greater strength” than steel and aluminum.

An early image of Dream Symphony under construction. The build has progressed, but is still waiting for an owner to see it to completion.  Courtesy Ken Freivokh

It has not been smooth sailing, though. When Dream Ship Victory approached RINA to certify construction, the Italian marine agency balked. It had never certified any wooden vessel over 98.4-feet in length. There followed an exacting process managed by Dykstra Naval Architects, involving composite experts Gurit, and exhaustive testing by laboratories at the Delft University of Technology in Holland and Italy’s University of Messina. The results satisfied RINA to certify construction and the build began.

“It’s almost the equivalent of a huge composite build,” said Freivokh. “The epoxy lamination is quite a complex system, but it preserves the wood, which means it should last a long time and behave very predictably.”

The original owner called for elegant use of wood across the interior. “The idea was to express the beauty of wood, so the owner was keen to have a fairly classic interior, and even the exterior is a modern interpretation of a classic,” says Freivokh. “At one point, we considered a contemporary style like Black Pearl , but the owner resisted that in favor of something more traditional, so it stands as a four-masted schooner.”

The four masts tower 229.7 feet above the water, carrying furling staysails on Hoyt booms with a total sail area 54,680 square feet. If built, the boat will also have a diesel-electric propulsion system for a maximum range under power of 5,900 nautical miles. A two-deck atrium with a spiral staircase is twinned with an owner’s duplex apartment spread across two decks. The “convertible conservatory” links the owner’s living quarters with the main lobby via an glass winter garden that opens to the elements. More glass features in the double-height glass swimming pool on the aft deck, with a bottom that rises to serve as a dance floor or helipad. Like motoryachts its size, Dream Symphony was designed with a spa, treatment rooms and gym.

The interior is designed to be classic, rather than contemporary, using mahogany throughout.  Courtesy Ken Freivokh

Freivokh is now working on two other wooden superyachts currently in build at Dream Ship Victory, and is finalizing a 243-foot yacht for Turquoise, another Turkish yard. “Owners who want to build in wood still remain in the minority, but it’s highly personal and some just love the passion of associated with beautiful old classics,” says the designer.

Perhaps. But the new owner has to be willing to take on a much larger technical challenge to claim the title of world’s largest sailboat.

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Perini Navi’s new 60m sloop Perseus^3 boasts the world’s largest single sail

• Elaine Bunting
• May 26, 2015

The new Perini Navi sloop Perseus^3 has the world's third largest carbon mast and her A2 spinnaker is the world’s largest single sail, bigger than all the giant Maltese Falcon’s 15 sails combined. Mike Owen and Rob Peake report

Perseus^ 3 is the second in Perini Navi’s new 60m series, launched earlier this year and in Palma for her first regatta and she is likely to turn heads, if only for her sheer scale.

This line is designed with performance much higher in mind than any previous Perini flybridge yachts, as already demonstrated by Seahawk, the first of the range, at the Bucket this year and last. Perseus^3 (Perseus Cubed) clearly goes a step or two further.

She is sloop rigged and her carbon mast stands third tallest in the world. Her Doyle inventory comprises a whopping 10,000m2/107,640ft2 of sails, and her A2 spinnaker is the world’s largest single sail, measuring 2,602m2/28,010ft2. For scale, this one sail alone is bigger than all the giant Maltese Falcon’s 15 sails combined.

The new 60m Perini Navi, Perseus^3

Doyle reports that initially there was simply no existing fabric capable of this job, so they developed their own new cloth, blending Polyester with Dyneema to give the cloth high strength and tear resistance, as well as light weight and enough softness for easy handling.

Future Fibres was responsible for the 16.4-tonne mast, one of the three tallest ever built, saying: “We have managed to produce a tube with a perfect exterior surface and a flawless Clearcote gloss carbon finish with zero filler – which can add up to three per cent to the weight of a mast.”

A new rig load monitoring system will use strain gauges to detect the loads acting on the carbon fibre rig components.

To manage this massive sailplan, Perini has been busy creating its own new generation of fast, quiet captive winches and furlers with variable-speed motors, a max loading of 30 tonnes for headsail, and varying line speeds aboard between 40 and 110 metres a minute. Forward there’s a carbon sprit, also a first for Perini, for the huge flying sails, the Code 0 calling for Future Fibres’ largest ever top-down furler.

But Perseus^3 has more than one focus. Her owner sailed his previous Perini, the 50m/164ft Perseus (now Silencio) in a circumnavigation with his young family. They enjoyed the cruising and also competed in the Hamilton Island Race Week. Charter was useful, too. All this will continue with Perseus^3 , perhaps just faster.

There’s a top bluewater and race-experienced permanent crew on board, vital to the safe handling of such an immense rig, and the accommodation is well suited for private and charter use.

Bruce Brakenhoff of Perini Navi USA explains: “When it came to planning his new, second Perini, the owner said: ‘I really love cruising, having my family aboard the boat, having a successful charter boat and I really love doing Buckets, so I want a boat that has as few compromises as possible to cover all of those bases.’

“When we started from that blank sheet of paper, not only with the engineering systems and changes like chainplate relocation for the sloop rig, I remember a meeting with Ron Holland with the owner saying what else can we do to make this even faster? Ron had just delivered a twin-rudder boat he’d had good experience with and suggested this. The owner thought it a great idea.

“But at the same time as it’s fast, this boat will be as popular a charter boat because it has a fantastic layout, an amazing owner’s suite, a humungous flybridge, and it’s got a pool, one of those lap pools where you swim against the jets – the thing’s like eight metres wide, it’ll turn into the biggest spinnaker pit you’ve ever seen!”

That could come in handy with that huge spinnaker.

With a centreboard Perseus^3 still can cruise in the Bahamas, but she will not manage the Panama Canal as she is too tall to fit under the Bridge of the Americas.

LOA 60m 197ft

LWL 50.4m 164ft

Beam 11.4m 37ft 5in

Draught 4.3-12.3m 14-39ft

Displacement 570 tonnes

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The World’s Largest Full-Rigged Sailing Ship (21 Photos)

by twistedsifter

At 439 feet in length, the five-masted, 42-sail Royal Clipper is the largest full-rigged sailing ship in the world.

With 19,000 square feet of open deck and accommodations for up to 227 guests, the Royal Clipper is a sight to behold.

Inspired by the legendary tall ship Preussen , Royal Clipper has the proud distinction of being the largest and only five-masted full-rigged sailing ship built, since her predecessor was launched at the beginning of the 20th century.

Technical Data

  Tonnage: 5,000 Length: 439 feet Beam: 54 feet Draft: 18.5 feet Sail Area: 56,000 Square feet Mast Height: 197 feet Total Staff: 106 Passenger Capacity: 227 Masts: 5 Masts, 42 Sails

Royal Clipper Interiors

Royal Clipper Cabins

Royal Clipper Dining

For more information visit the Star Clippers official website

Categories: BEST OF , DESIGN , TRAVEL Tags: · boats , cruise ship , largest , sailing , top , world record

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5 Biggest and Magnificent Sailing Ships of All Time

Ships with sails were the vogue in the bygone days. Technology in the form of engines surpassed these marine marvels, with better speed and thereby higher efficiency.

However, even though their utility value diminished their novelty and uniqueness still continues to linger. Over the years, many replicas of sailing ships have been created.

Some of these replicas are used as cruise vessels while some just provide a feel of the years-long gone by.

Detailed below is a compilation of five of the biggest ships with sails of all time which would help in providing a better insight into these unparallel vessels:

1.    Barque Sedov

Originally known as the Magdalene Vinnen II, the sailing ship was built in Germany in 1921 and was mainly used as a cargo ship until the year 1936 in which she was converted into a naval training vessel.

After the Second World War, she was handed over to the Soviet navy and her name was changed to Sedov after the famous Soviet explorer Georgy Sedov. The most unique aspect about the Sedov is that at the time of construction, in addition to the four sailing steel masts, it had an ancillary engine built.  

At present after nearly 90 years past her construction, the Sedov is still in operation and is used as a training vessel for cadets from the Russian universities of St. Petersburg and Murmansk. The biggest sailing ship is also a participant in many of the tall sailing ships’ races held across the world.

2.    Royal Clipper

The Royal Clipper is a cruise ship that is built on the lines of the Preussen – a five mast sail ship that was built in the year 1902. At present, the Royal Clipper is regarded to be the world’s largest sailing ship with five masts that are rigged fully.

The cruise ship offers a Mediterranean cruise during the summer while offering a Caribbean cruise during the winter. As one of the tall sailing ships, the Royal Clipper finds a place in the esteemed Guinness Book of World Records as the biggest sailing ship with squarely rigged masts.

3.  Preussen

The German ship Preussen was the largest sailing ship wonder at the time of its launch at the start of the 20 th century. Artistically ingenious, the ship’s hull was made of steel and was powered by five fully rigged masts. At that time, the sailing ship boasted of being the only vessel to have five masts with fully rigged sails.

Used as a cargo ship to transport nitrate in the South American continent, the Preussen with an untimely end when a Brighton – a steamer ran it down.

4.  Juan Sebastian Elcano

Also known as the Juan Sebastian de Elcano, the schooner was built in the year 1927 and is third among the world’s tall sailing ships.

Named after Juan Sebastian Elcano, the man who commandeered the fleet during Ferdinand Magellan’s last expedition, the ship sail is presently used as a training vessel for the Spanish Royal naval forces. A steel-hulled four-mast sail ship, the Juan Sebastian Elcano is a very popular ship with sails.

5.  Thomas W. Lawson

Built by the Fore River Ship and Engine Co. based in Massachusetts in the year 1901, the Thomas W. Lawson was a seven-mast schooner used mainly for the purpose of hauling coal and oil by the Eastern Coast of the United States.

However on account of the huge size and bulk of the ship, in her later years, she was used only for the purpose of oil cargo transportation and was regarded as the first sailing tanker vessel in the world.

Thomas W. Lawson formed a very important role in the sail ships of its era because of the fact that it was operated without the support of any ancillary engines.

A storm on the island of Scilly caused the ship to be destroyed beyond repair and 16 crew members from the original total of 18 lost their lives in the accident.

These ships with sails are an important part of the world’s marine heritage. Over the years, many further developments will take place which will carve many innovations to the existing marine pool of vessels but it would be difficult to pinpoint how much these developments will affect the inheritance passed on by these biggest sailing vessels.

You may also like to read- The History of Ships: Ancient Maritime World

12 Sailing Books For Beginners 

Disclaimer:  The authors’ views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of Marine Insight.  Data and charts, if used, in the article have been sourced from available information and have not been authenticated by any statutory authority. The author and Marine Insight do not claim it to be accurate nor accept any responsibility for the same. The views constitute only the opinions and do not constitute any guidelines or recommendations on any course of action to be followed by the reader.

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One Comment

I have this 10 x 13 signed photograph of the ‘2nd’ Preussen (there was 2), with a handwritten copyright dated 1929, in mint condition. It would be interesting to find out its value.

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Top 10 Biggest Ships Ever Built in History

Which ship is the largest ship of the world? The very first name which comes to our minds is the Titanic. Undoubtedly Titanic was one of the most famous ships which met with quite a memorable trouble on its first journey. There are many other giant ships of which most of us are not aware. Here we have brought a list of top 10 biggest ships ever built in history. Some of them are scrapped and some are in active service.

The world’s biggest ships are listed according to their overall length, deadweight tonnage and gross tonnage. The list includes the current record-holders, either as individual ships or ship classes, of each major ship type as well as some former record-holders and larger vessels that have been scrapped.

In This Article

10. TI Class Supertanker

TI class supertanker Oceania is one of the most attractive ships ever built with massive capacity transferring crude oil. They are the four largest double-hulled supertankers in the world. They are also the largest ships in the world currently. The Maersk Triple E class container ships are longer, but the TI Class are still the biggest in terms of deadweight tonnage and gross tonnage.

The deadweight tonnage of TI Oceania is around 440,000 tones along with the speed capacity of speed between 16 to 18 knots. TI Oceaniais a master piece ship highly laden with technology to hurdle all the obstacles which might occur during the journeys. The length of TI Oceania is 380 m (1,247 ft).

9. Berge Emperor

The Berge Emperor was a large oil tanker built in the year 1975 in Japan by Mitsui and was one of the largest oil tankers of all time. It was launched on 30 August 1975. The ship weighed 211,360 tons and had a length of 381.82 meters. The ship was owned by Bergesen d.y. & Co. but in the year 1985 it was sold to Maastow BV. and the ship’s name was changed to “Emperor”. This ship was scrapped at Kaohsiung on the 30th of March 1986.

8. CMA CGM Alexander von Humboldt

Named after Alexander von Humboldt, CMA CGM Alexander von Humboldt is an Explorer class container ship built for CMA CGM. It was the world’s largest containership until the delivery of the Maersk Triple E Class. The length of the massive big ship is 396 m (1,299 ft). The deadweight tonnage of CMA CGM Alexander von Humboldt is almost 187,624 tones.

7. Emma Maersk

In the list of top 10 biggest ships of the world, Emma Maerskis currently the second biggest ship which is still in service. It is the first container ship in the E-class of eight owned by the A. P. Moller-Maersk Group. When she was launched in 2006, Emma Mærsk was the largest container ship ever built. As of 2010, she and her seven sister ships are among the longest container ships constructed. It’s a Container ship which carries different goods from country to country. It is able to carry around 11,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) or 14,770 TEU depending on definition. The length of the massive big ship is 397.71 m (1,305 ft).

6. Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller

Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller is the lead ship of Maersk’s Triple E class of container vessels. She has the largest cargo capacity in TEU of any ship yet constructed, and is the longest ship in service worldwide as of 2013. She was constructed for Maersk by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) of South Korea, and entered service in July 2013.

Along with her sister ships, Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller is the world’s largest and most efficient operational container ship as of 2013, totalling 399 metres (1,309 ft) in length and with a cargo capacity of 18,270 TEU containers. She has a maximum speed of 23 knots.

5. Esso Atlantic

Esso Atlantic is one of the most popular name in the history of the big ships. This huge ship, 406.57 m (1,333.9 ft) long has an incredible deadweight capacity of 516,891 tons. Esso Atlantic has served the world with its consistent services level of straight 35 years. There’s no need to say that it used to be the best ship of its time. Esso Atlantic was an oil tanker basically and was disposed off as scrap on 2002 in Pakistan.

4. 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 homonymous Batillus class supertankers. Batillus, together with her sister ships Bellamya, Pierre Guillaumat and Prairial, was one of the biggest ships in the world, surpassed in size only by Seawise Giant built in 1976, and extended in 1981, although the four ships of the Batillus class had a larger gross tonnage.

With the deadweight capacity of almost 554,000 tones and the speed 16 to 17 knots and length of 414.22 m (1,359 feet), Batillus was the 4th biggest ship. She made her last journey on December 28, 1985, from Vestnes to Kaoshiung (Taiwan).

3. Pierre Guillaumat

It was the third biggest ship ever built in the history of world. Named after the French politician and founder of Elf Aquitaine oil industry, Pierre Guillaumat was a supertanker, built in 1977 by Chantiers de l’Atlantique at Saint-Nazaire for Compagnie Nationale de Navigation.

It served the world for only 6 years before it was disposed of as scrap because of the huge unprofitability and declining demands. Because of her gigantic proportions the usability of the Pierre Guillaumat was very limited. She couldn’t pass through either the Panama or Suez canals. Because of her draft, she could enter a minimal number of ports in the world, and was therefore moored on offshore rigs, and oil terminals like Antifer and after off-loading to reduce her draft, at Europoort. The deadweight tonnage of Pierre Guillaumat was almost 555,000 tones with near about 16 knots of speed. The length of Pierre Guillaumat was almost 414.22 m (1,360 feet).

2. Seawise Giant

Mont, previously known as Oppama, Knock Nevis, Jahre Viking, Happy Giant and Seawise Giant, was a ULCC supertanker. Mont became the longest and largest ship by deadweight tonnage after lengthening. Seawise Giant was also called the Queen of oceans and rivers. It was built in 1979 by Sumitomo Heavy Industries,Ltd. at their shipyard in Japan. During the Iran-Iraq War it was damaged by an air force attack. It was sank and was considered completely lost. However the wreckage was salvaged and repaired. After the repairs she was back in service as Happy Giant.

The vessel was sold to Indian ship breakers, and renamed Mont for her final journey in December 2009. After that, it was intentionally beached in India for demolition. Along with the title of being the biggest ship of the world at that time, it also holds the title of being the biggest Oil tanker type ship ever built.

1. Prelude FLNG

Prelude is the biggest ship of the world ever built till present. A hull longer than the Empire State Building is tall, was launched in South Korea in December 2013. Measuring 488 m (1,601 ft) long and 74 m (243 ft) wide, the hull belongs to Shell’s Prelude floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility, which is the largest floating facility ever built. More than 260,000 tonnes of steel is used in its construction. In operation, it would weigh more than 600,000 tonnes; more than five times the weight of the largest aircraft carrier.

Top 5: The Biggest Flying Boats Of All Time

• Flying boats were popular in the early days of aviation for transatlantic travel, offering comfort and versatility with the ability to land on water.
• The largest flying boats ever built include the Hughes H-4 Hercules with a wingspan of 321 feet and the Saunders-Roe Princess with innovative features but was ultimately canceled.
• The Dornier Do X was the largest and heaviest flying boat in the world, but only three were produced, while the Sikorsky S-42 and Consolidated PBY Catalina were successful in their production and use.

Flying boats were unique kinds of seaplanes that stood out from other hydroplanes by virtue of having a built-in hull, as opposed to a traditional fuselage and attached pontoons. In the early days of aviation, between the First World War and the Second World War, flying boats became incredibly popular, especially for transatlantic travel.

The aircraft was extremely versatile, able to land pretty much anywhere that there was water, greatly limiting the operational barriers these machines needed to come over in order to launch a new service.

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From the passenger perspective, flying boats were an incredible improvement over the smaller, louder, and more cramped land-based planes. Flying boats had an incredible size, allowing for an unparalleled level of comfort. From a safety perspective, the flying boats, with the ability to land anywhere at any time over the Atlantic in the event of an emergency, were certainly able to reassure any queasy passengers.

But just how large did the scale of flying boats get? How large did these machines ultimately become at their peak, and how widespread was their operation? In this article, we will break down the five largest flying boats to ever take to the skies.

Hughes H-4 Hercules

Number produced: 1.

Perhaps the most iconic of all flying boats is the Hughes H-4 Hercules , commonly referred to as the Spruce Goose, which was a strategic airlift flying boat designed by the Hughes Aircraft Company. The flying boat was originally intended to transport troops across the Atlantic Ocean during World War II but was not completed until 1947, and as a result, the aircraft was never used during the war.

• Pilot by a crew of three.
• An incredible wingspan of nearly 321 feet (around 98 meters).
• 219 feet in length (67 meters), 80 feet tall.
• The fuselage measured 30 feet in height.
• Powered by eight Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major radial piston engines, each sporting a 17-foot tall Hamilton Standard four-bladed propeller.

The aircraft's only production prototype flew just once on 2 November 1947. Today, the Spruce Goose remains on display at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.

Saunders-Roe Princess

The Saunders-Roe Princess was a flying boat built and developed by British aircraft manufacturer Saunder-Roe. The gargantuan aircraft holds the unique title of being the largest completely metal flying boat ever to take to the skies. The princess had originally been intended to serve as an alternative to ocean liners for the world's elite, ferrying passengers across the Atlantic in unparalleled comfort.

The aircraft was extremely innovative, taking advantage of the newly-released Bristol Proteus turboprop engines, a decision that may have doomed the program as delivery delays on these engines caused immense headaches for Saunders Roe.

Nonetheless, the plane took to the skies on 22 August 1952 and would complete a grand total of 47 test flights. Furthermore, the flying boat made two appearances at the Farnborough Airshow. Nonetheless, British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), the precursor to modern British Airways, didn't order the Princess, ultimately leading the program to be canceled.

Dornier Do X

Number produced: 3.

This flying boat, which was introduced in 1929, was a major project of Claude Dornier, the leader of German manufacturer Dornier . When it first took to the skies on 12 July 1929, the Do X was the largest, heaviest, and most powerful airworthy machine in the world, with an incredible weight of 56 tons. The aircraft's construction was financed by the German Transport Ministry, but never garnered much attention from civilian operators, resulting in only three of the type ever being produced.

The Do X was an immensely complex aircraft and required a crew of at least ten in order to fly. The aircraft was over 130 feet (40 meters) long with a wingspan of nearly 156 feet (40 meters). The plane's fuel capacity was over 16,000 liters, and the flying boat's 12 Siemens Jupiter piston engines were placed on pylons mounted above the aircraft's main wing.

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Sikorsky S-42

Number built: 10.

The Sikorsky S-42, a long-range flying boat, first flew in 1934 and was primarily used by Pan American Airways. The flying boat, which was originally developed by Sikorsky Aircraft from the earlier S-40, flew passengers all the way up until the late 1940s.

In total, ten of these "clipper" aircraft, as they were dubbed by Pan Am , were ever built. The aircraft required a crew of four and could accommodate up to 37 passengers. These aircraft were powered by four Pratt & Whitney R-1690 Hornet piston engines.

Consolidated PBY Catalina

Number built: 3,308.

This flying boat, which was originally designed as the Consolidated Model 28 , was later dubbed the Catalina by the US Navy and was mass-produced in both the United States and Canada. So successful was this aircraft that certain military variants remained in service in the Brazilian Air Force until 1982, and remains in use today as a waterbomber in aerial firefighting efforts.

This twin-engined aircraft first flew on 21 March 1935 and was one of the most common seaplanes used during the Second World War. A crew of eight was required to pilot the twin-engined aircraft, which featured a pair of Pratt & Whitney R-1830-92 Twin Wasp piston engines mounted over the main wings.