About this site

Ugly Ships….The Website

There are millions and millions of ships, vessels, boats, barges, floating contraptions and UFO’s* out there. and probably each of them is photographed somewhere, sometime, somehow by somebody. A lot of those pictures end up on the interweb on various websites run by people who spend enormous amounts of time (if not their life) indexing them and publishing information about them. Sometimes even following “their” ships worldwide to get that a picture that they didn’t have yet: probably where the ship is entering / docking / mooring / crashing / departing in a unknown shitheap of a port in a far-away country. In the same time ruining their family’s holiday because (usually) daddy needs to sit 24/7 @ the waterfront to make sure he gets what he thinks he wants.
And in the end the aforementioned picture is indistinguishable from all the other pictures out there, or somebody else beat him to it.

I’m guilty…..guilty of visiting these websites…..getting information about ships that I have seen during my work and captured my interest for some reason (Yes: another confession: I’m a seafarer, I work @ ships). And yet another confession: (what is this: church???) I always bring my camera when I’m going to a vessel and I do take pics and upload them to various sites. There, you got it: I do it to! (but I definitely prefer to do it when behind the glas on a warm & comfy bridge of a vessel).

What struck me is that there are websites for ships whatsoever, for cargo ships, for offshore vessels, for cruise ships, for tugs, for unlucky ships, for new ships, for old ships, for scrapped ships, for crashed ships, for tankers, bulkers, containercarriers, warships, peace-ships, ships being build, heavy lift ships, crane barges, a combination of the above, (the ultimate: a crashed & sunken then scrapped, con-ro-pax-bulker, used by the navy, semi-submersible & with a hugh crane ;-D ).

The only thing that I missed was a website for Ugly Ships, ships that make you look twice and still go “WTF??”, those ships.
Now I know; Some people think that there are no beautiful ships in the world so all ships are per definition ugly, I don’t necessarily disagree but there are ships out there that are pleasing to the eye, robust, though. The bulk of the ships is bland, normal, just a alteration from a once set template.
And then you have the UGLY SHIPS, ships where the designer had an off-day or off-month, the monday morning ships, where the monday was preceded by 6 months of drinking & drugs-abuse by said designer. Ships that started off as beautiful, well-thought designs and are then fucked up by alterations in a later stadium. Ships that are later converted, lengthened, widened, altered……..Ships that make a sailor be ashamed to sail them.

Although I have to admit that I have respect for the sales-people who manage to sell these ugly designs or the complete ships to the customers…………

There are people that say that all cruise-ships are ugly, all modern ships are ugly, all tugs are ugly and so-on…..the only parameter is my personal opinion; If I find them ugly enough they deserve a place and get eternal honor on this website.

And during my voyages over the oceans and over the various ship-related websites on this world I found not only ugly ships but also other ships that stood out because they were different, strange, odd, funny, unusual, had a bad paintjob or no paintjob at all…..these ships will also be featured here as they will also make you look twice and go: WTF?!?!.

So that’s what this website is all about: UGLY SHIPS. Go on and be horrified! And have fun at the same time.

Oh; and sometimes vessels might come up that are not so ugly, the socalled “non-ugly”-vessels….these are meant as an antidote to the ugly majority, to show you that there are actually ships out there that are not an eyesore, where designers have tried to be esthetically and pleasing to the eye. Enjoy them as well.

*Unidentified Floating Objects