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The Globtik Tokyo

Great oil companies they paid,
Ishikawajima laid
For a mighty ship a keel,
Built her out of solid steel.

Big as supertankers go
was the Globtik Tokyo,
Length twelve hundred feet or so,
was the Globtik Tokyo.

Fifty thousand horse power geared,
Through the ocean's waters sheared.
Sixteen knots her speed at top,
Took three miles for her to stop.

Half a million tons displaced,
Engineers a problem faced:
This the largest ship on Earth,
For repairs where would she berth?

On the globe there was no slip
That would take this super ship;
They must build a giant dry dock,
So men planned around the clock.

Who would have the expertise?
Who would this great challenge seize?
Men who'd built the Snowy Scheme;
Men who weren't afraid to dream.

At the Sembawang shipyard,
Six thousand men toiling hard.
Re-bar tied and concrete poured,
The great walls, upward they soared.

Tons of concrete still they pour;
Six feet thick the dry dock floor.
On a thousand piles it sits,
Driven deep by mighty hits.

Built by Theiss and Petrosea;
Filled with water from the sea.
In sails the great ship in turn;
Fits so neat from stem to stern.

Thirty feet she takes of draught;
Open up the culvert shaft.
Drain the water level low;
They've slipped - the Globtik Tokyo.

poem by Dennis N. O'Brien
Added by Poetry Lover
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