Ultra-large crude carriers (ULCC)

Lots of people talk about the super tankers in Long Beach harbor. The fact of the matter is very few people have ever seen a super tanker. Certainly not in Long Beach or LA harbors. The reason is that the really big boys, the Ultra Large Crude Carriers, ULCC, draw 82 feet of water and the channels into the harbors are dredged to maintain 53 feet.

Most all of the so called super tankers ply between The Middle East and Europe or Asia. Back in the late 1970’s because of the oil shortage here in the USA some ULCC’s came to SoCal. Because of their enormous drafts, they would anchor near where the undersea shelf drops off. This is about ten miles off shore which is where the oil platforms  Edith, Elly, Ellen and Eureka are. This is a good anchorage for a big ship. The depth to the bottom is about 50 to 60 fathoms, about 300 to 350 feet.

While at anchor out there the tankers that can fit into the LB, LA channels come out and the oil is pumped from the big guy to the smaller ship. This is called lightering in our world.

The size of a ship is generally determined by it’s displacement. A ULCC displaces 500.000 tons. The “smaller” tankers are in the 80 to 100,000 ton category.

As a comparison, the aircraft carrier that I was stationed on in 1963-64 USS Constellation was a super carrier and was then the largest ship in the world. You could place both the Queen Mary and the Queen Elisabeth on her flight deck and nothing would hang over and Connie displaced a mere 83,000 tons or 166 million pounds.

We used to see those big ships out there transferring massive tons of crude oil on our way to Catalina back in the late 1970’s but like a lot of other interesting things, those days are over.