Edward Heerema, the president of Swiss-based Allseas Group S.A., had decided to name their newest and largest ship, Pieter Schelte, after his father, Pieter Schelte Heerema, who was an accomplished marine engineer. Unfortunately, that is not the only thing that his father is remembered for. During World War II, Pieter Schelte Heerema served as a Dutch officer in the Nazi Waffen SS.  The naming of the ship after a Nazi officer was controversial  from the day it was announced.  Allseas essentially ignored the protests from Jewish groups and from the shipping labor unions. When Royal Dutch Shell, which has hired the ship to decommission offshore rigs, complained, however, Allseas payed attention. The ship has been re-named the Pioneering Spirit.

All of the controversy surrounding the name of the ship has distracted from the appreciation of size of the new ship, which may be the largest ship ever built, with a gross tonnage of 403,342 GT, a breadth of 123.75 m/406 ft and a full load displacement of 900,000 metric tons. The ship is a dynamically positioned catamaran designed to install or decommission offshore platforms and to lay pipe.  Shell’s Prelude  floating liquefied natural gas platform is longer but far narrower than the Pioneering Spirit and has a displacement of around 600,000 metric tonnes.