Ravi Tikoo: the man who would build giants

Entrepreneur Ravi Tikoo planned to build super-size vessels but after the Globtik giants in the 1970s megaships fell out of favour.

By the beginning of the 1970s, with the Suez Canal closed since 1967 (it would not re-open until 1975) vessel routing was via the Cape of Good Hope, and as a consequence tanker size could increase as it was not restricted by the Canal's dimensions. This allowed an economy of size, with tankers increasing in capacity to typically around 250,000 tonnes deadweight.  

There was talk of constructing vessels as big as 500,000 tonnes or even 1,000,000 tonnes, but no owner would commit to such an increase. Eventually one man took up the challenge. 

At a press conference in London in November 1971 the Indian shipping entrepreneur Ravi Tikoo announced that he was to build two giant tankers in Japan and had already negotiated long term charters for both. When completed they would be the largest vessels in the world.

The man behind the giants

Tikoo was born in 1927, the son of the finance minister of the then princely state of Mandi, and grew up in Kashmir. He entered the Indian Navy after studying mathematics at Punjab University and moved to Europe in 1961, settling in Hamburg before crossing over to London in 1964. There he operated as a middleman, putting deals together between shipping companies and banks. He founded Globtik Tankers in 1967 and acquired his first tanker the following year. 

When he started planning to build his giants his middleman experience proved invaluable, enabling him to put together a package between the banks, shipbuilders, and charterers. Over the following years he amassed a fortune, invested in a string of racehorses and, when he moved to the USA, bought Dunnellen Hall in Greenwich, Connecticut, for US$3 million, selling it for $11 million in 1983.

The Globtik giants

The two tankers he ordered would be the world's largest on completion and only exceeded three years later by Shell France's two 550,000 dwt vessels Batillus and Bellamya*. Tikoo is reported to have paid £21 million for the 483,684-tonne deadweight Globtik Tokyo, completed by Japan's Ishikawajima Harima Heavy Industries (IHI), of Kure, in February 1973; the sistership Globtik London was larger by 276 tonnes, and completed by IHI in October of that year, while a third vessel of the class, the 484,276 tonne Nissei Maru, was built for Tokyo Tankers in 1975.  

Despite their size these giants did not last long in service as they were too big to meet the logistics of the oil industry. Globtik Tokyo was scrapped in 1986 and London a year earlier, though Nissei Maru did survive until 2003.

The Globtik Venus incident

March 1977 saw Tikoo involved in what became a notorious incident when he hired a team of fishermen to regain control of his 55,000-tonne tanker Globtik Venus, held in Le Havre in an angry union dispute. Following the incident Tikoo moved to the USA, citing his disillusionment with the British Government among others.

More megaship ideas

Over the following years Tikoo would be associated with a number of proposed ship designs, each of which would be amongst the world's biggest, though none of these projects came to fruition. 

In 1977 Tikoo signed a letter of intent with Newport News Shipbuilding, which could have led to the construction of the world's largest nuclear-powered commercial vessels, three 600,000 tonne deadweight tankers.  

Two years later and a grandiose plan to use 24 ice-breaking tankers to service the Prudhoe Bay oilfields and ship via the Northwest Passage to the US East Coast also fell by the wayside. 

In 1988 it was reported that Tikoo was interested in purchasing the Harland & Wolff shipyard from the British Government. Also that year, he announced the Ultimate Dream project for one – plus a possible second – of the largest cruise ships in the world with the intention that it should be built by the yard.  

In the following decades Ravi Tikoo appears to have moved away from shipping and pursued other business interests but he will always be remembered for being the individual, as opposed to a corporation, who owned the world’s largest ships.

Globtik Tokyo principal particulars

Projected mega ships details