Esso Northumbria

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History
United Kingdom
Name	Esso Northumbria
Owner	Esso
Port of registry	London[1]
Builder	Swan Hunter, Wallsend[2]
Launched	2 May 1969[2]
Sponsored by	Princess Anne[2]
Completed	14 May 1970[2]
Identification	IMO number: 6917530 Call sign: GZJE[3]
Nickname(s)	"Big Geordie"[4]
Fate	Scrapped in Taiwan in 1982
General characteristics
Type	Oil tanker
Tonnage	126,543 GRT 254,277 DWT[3]
Length	348.5 m (1,143 ft) o/a 330.7 m (1,085 ft) p/p[2]
Beam	51.9 m (170 ft)[2]
Depth	25.6 m (84 ft)[1]
Propulsion	2 × Associated Electrical Industries steam turbines, 32,000 shp (23.9 MW), single screw[1]
Speed	16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph)[2]

The Esso Northumbria was the first of a series of Very Large Crude Carrier ships, built by Swan Hunter at Wallsend on Tyneside, in 1969. When launched on 2 May 1969 by Princess Anne it was the largest vessel to have been built in Britain at that time.^[5]

The ship was designed to carry crude oil from the Persian Gulf, and its large design was a result of the Six Day War, which had resulted in the closing of the Suez Canal. The ship was single-hulled and was designed with relatively limited knowledge of the behaviours of such large structures at sea, being generally a straightforward scaling-up of a smaller design. It was also built to a fixed-price contract at a time when rampant inflation was occurring in Britain. This led to many attempts to cut costs; Swan Hunter ultimately made a loss on the contract. Final cost of the ship was £6.5 million.

The ship was plagued with problems both with its fittings and more seriously, with cracking of the hull under stress. It needed many repairs in its short working lifetime and this, together with fears of a major spill, prompted its retirement in 1982 after only 12 years in service. The ship was broken up at Kaohsiung, Taiwan. A similar fate befell its sister ship, the Esso Hibernia, also built on Tyneside and launched in 1970.^[6]

• In the 1971 feature film Get Carter starring Michael Caine, the Esso Hibernia appeared in the background of a shootout scene by the docks.
• In 2019, The Dreadnoughts, a Canadian folk punk band, released "Roll Northumbria," a song which details an alternate version of the Northumbria's short lifespan, in which the cracks in the hull cause an oil spill.^[7]

• "Building The Big 'Un (1969 film)". BBC Nation on Film.