Shipbuilder

“ The extraordinary progress in American mercantile shipbuilding was due, in part, to special circumstances connected with their navigation laws, and in part to the abundance and cheapness of excellent timber; but, even with these advantages, the Americans would never have been able to run such a close race with us for the carrying trade of the world, had it not been for the great technical skill and intelligence of their shipbuilders, who produced vessels which were the envy and admiration of our own constructors. ”

“ Our iron ships have been built chiefly in the seaboard yards. During the present year, 1899, the American yards are busy constructing vessels both for the navy and for our merchant fleet, and new yards are being established. Having begun selling crude and structural iron and steel and various classes of machinery in Europe, even in Great Britain, we shall ere long be selling iron and steel ships. The excellence of our navy has brought us orders for war ships, and the skill and invention of our shipbuilders will bring us foreign orders for merchantmen. ”

“ To meet the exigencies of the progressive movement, both practical skill, scientific knowledge, and commercial enterprise have been needed on the part of our shipbuilders. These have not been by any means wanting, as abundantly evidenced by the foregoing record of what has been achieved. With a continuance of that readiness displayed by shipbuilders and naval architects to modify, and even revolutionize if need be, types and methods which the times have outgrown, the lead in merchant shipbuilding will long be ours. ”

“ The crowning case of all is that of the building firms themselves—many shipbuilders unquestionably being conscientious and thorough to a degree which simply mocks this great array of supervision.
In the outfit of vessels correspondingly close attention is paid to those features, fixed or portable, which contribute to the safety of the ship and the welfare of passengers. The universal adoption of steam winches for working cargo enables the pumps communicating with the holds to be wrought by steam, through levers attached to the barrel ends of the winches. ”

“ It is here, beyond question, where the equipment of modern shipyards is seen to be so much an advance on the former order of things, when handicraft was indispensable and paramount; and it is also here, probably, where the greatest labour-saving advances have been made. The artistic perfection which is evinced in the palatial saloons and state-rooms of many modern steamships would not have been possible—commercially so, at least—to the shipbuilders of twenty years ago, whose appliances, regarded from present-day standpoints, seem to have been woefully crude and meagre. ”

“ The new firm speedily established itself through a series of improvements, having for their object the reduction of fuel consumption on board steam vessels. In 1860 the firm commenced to build ships, and as shipbuilders and marine engineers they laboured successfully for sixteen years, building during that period 106 vessels, with an aggregate tonnage of 81,326 tons, and constructing 111 sets of marine engines, showing a nominal power of 20,145 horses. ”

“ The urgent demands of our broader civilisation, improvements in navigation, the spread of population in new colonies and over wider continents, and, above all, the fresh accessions of experience and invention, are forces which now impel shipowners to increase the dimensions of their vessels, and shipbuilders to carry out the work. ”

“ Adjacent to the shipyard are extensive brass and copper works, employing about 300 hands, which, besides supplying all the brass and plumber work required for vessels in the shipyard, undertake similar work for other shipbuilders, also work for the Navy, such as cast gun-metal rams and stern-posts for men-of-war, and brackets for outer-bearings in twin-screws. ”

“ To ensure the most perfect description of vessels, he nevertheless sought the assistance of the most competent shipbuilders and engineers, who had not only the proper knowledge of marine engines and boilers, but who, having also seen their operation at sea, would be able to avoid previous errors, and to construct vessels and machinery well fitted to vie with the best that England could produce. ”

“ A knowledge of its fifty-three branches equal to that of any of the fifty-three men in charge of them; the supervising these, combining and managing them so that all might, smoothly and efficiently, work to the one great end assigned, the keeping abreast with the latest devices in labour-saving appliances, with the newest means of securing economical fitness, with the most modern discoveries in electrical, mechanical and marine engineering—in short, everything relative to the construction and equipment of modern steamships ”

“ He can trace, for instance, the effects of the change from wood to iron, and from iron to steel, in the carrying capacity of ships, and he can note the effects of successive improvements in the propelling machinery in saving weight and space occupied by engines, boilers, and bunkers; and in conferring upon a ship of a given size the power of making longer voyages. Here, too, he can learn how it was that the American clipper supplanted the old English sailing merchantman, and how the screw iron ship, fitted with highly economical engines, has practically driven the clipper from the seas. ”

“ Shipbuilding once was a trade and an art. It now is an industry in which many trades are combined, from boiler-making to electric-wiring and from the calculation of the strains to which the several parts will be submitted to the decoration of the splendid furniture of the finished ocean-liner. Again, it is a science rather than an art, inasmuch as the builder is guided, not so much by the image and the actual sight of the ship, as by a system of rules and by pages of calculations. ”

“ A new material of construction has been introduced into shipbuilding, with entirely new methods of propulsion. Old things have been displaced by new; and the magnitude of the results has been extraordinary. The most important changes have been in the use of iron and steel instead of wood, and in the employment of the steam-engine in impelling ships by the paddle or the screw.
So long as timber was used for the construction of ships, the number of vessels built annually, especially in so small an island as Britain, must necessarily have continued very limited. ”

“ And a boy who can build a good ship is not to be laughed at by any mechanic or architect, no matter how tall or how old he may be.
The young ship-builder who understands his trade, when he is about to put a vessel on the stocks—to speak technically—first makes up his mind whether it is to be a ship, a schooner, a sloop, or merely a sail-boat, and determines its size. Then he selects a good piece of solid, but light wood, which will be large enough for the hull. ”

“ I beg to inform you that for some years I have been engaged in iron ship-building, and I am prepared to take a partner, active or otherwise. The business in which I am at present engaged is connected with an extensive graving dock, now in formation; attached to which will be marine engine and boiler works, so that we may be able to attend, not only to the lengthening and requisite repairs of the hulls, but be able to uphold and renovate their engines, boilers, &c. &c., a combination which is now specially demanded by the greatly increased employment of steam vessels. ”

“ The vessel is simply a great steel packing-box, with rounded ends, made strong to resist the shock of waves and the impact of thousands of tons of iron poured in from a bin as high above the floor as the roof of a three-story building. With vessels such as these, the cost of carrying ore has been reduced below the level of freight charges in any part of the world.
Yet comfort and speed are by no means overlooked. The quarters of the officers and men are superior to those provided on most of the ocean liners, and vastly better than anything offered by the "ocean tramps." ”

“ Among the advantages which experience has proved iron and steel to possess over wood for the purposes of ship construction are: (1) the structure of the ship has less weight; (2) it has greater durability; (3) the requisite general and local strengths are much more easily obtained.
The importance of the first of these advantages can scarcely be overstated. The primary object of a particular ship is to carry cargo or passengers, or both, from place to place, at a given speed (in the case of a warship, the armament, ammunition, armour, &c., constitute the weight to be carried) ”

“ If we look at the magnitude of the operations of building, launching, engining, and completing a modern passenger ship of the first rank, and regard the multiplicity of the arrangements and beauty of finish now expected, and then think this structure has to brave the elements, make regular passages, convey thousands of human souls, and tens of thousands of tons of merchandise every year across the ocean, in storm or calm, we cannot but feel that they are occupied in useful human labour. ”

“ The iron ship is but a tank with shaped ends, or a girder, or a series of box girders, for every deck, and every row of pillaring constitutes a girder; their size and shape are all set out by the draftsman in the drawing office, the work in the yard is purely mechanical; the old skill of the craftsman is not called into play.
It was my good fortune, when I left school in 1856, to spend some time in the shipbuilding yard of George Cox & Son, of Bideford, in order that I might obtain some knowledge of the craft. ”

“ These vessels, which are nearly uniform in size and speed, were designed and built with a view of affording the public an extra supply of steamers, such as would best attain the three-fold purpose of safety, speed, and comfort; and certainly their performances have realised the objects and expectations of their enterprising owners. Built of iron with watertight and fire-proof compartments, they afford in their strength every guarantee for safety, nor are their owners behind their rivals in the caution exercised to avoid the ordinary dangers of rapid navigation. ”

“ When the water is all out, there she stands, balanced and braced. Now men can work under her and all over her—and inside. They{51} scrape off the barnacles, paint the hull, and repair any parts that have begun to wear out. To reach some parts of the hull painters use long-handled brushes—really long. They’re often three times as tall as a man!
Experts go over the ship as carefully as doctors examine people. But many men work at top speed in shifts around the clock, and a ship often spends only twenty-four hours in drydock. ”

“ Not only was she built to the requirements of the Board of Trade and the insurance companies, but, as we have noted, she was constructed by the leading shipbuilding company of the world, under conditions which would inspire them to put into the world's greatest steamship the very best that the long experience and ample facilities of the yard could produce. ”

“ Some instruction must always be given in the shipbuilding plant, but it is possible to give a great deal in the industrial schools, and, as the wages are good, men should be readily attracted to the shipbuilding trades.
While ironworkers' trades consisting of loftsmen, ship-fitters, riveters, chippers, calkers, reamers, bolters, packers, 66 and some others are peculiar to shipbuilding as well as the shipwright's trade, the trades of plumber, pipe fitter, coppersmith, etc. are very materially different in the shipbuilding trades from what they are in the building trades. ”

“ The noise and uproar are deafening; coal-trimmers trundle their barrows unceasingly from bunker to stoke-hole, or, if the ship’s motion be too great for the wheels, carry it in baskets, and during the four long hours there is no rest for those who labor here.
In the largest ships the engineer force numbers one hundred and seventy men, and in vessels with double engines these are divided into two crews with a double allowance of officers for duty. One engineer keeps a watch in each fire-room, and two are stationed on each engine-room platform. ”

“ Is it possible to build a ship of the kind he requires? Quite so; and the ship-builder knows he can accomplish it by swelling out the vessel at the bows, and bellying her out at the sides, and broadening her at the stern, and altogether making her of such a ridiculous shape, that she will move slowly, and become the grave of many a hapless mariner. The ship-builder not only knows that this can be done ”

“ Ten years ago it would have seemed ludicrous to the builders on the Clyde had they been told that a country which had no coal worth speaking of, and whose iron, though abundant, was difficult to get at, and where, moreover, not half a dozen men knew how to do the simplest iron ship-building job, would in the course of those years not only beat them in quality but in price, and would be turning out the largest, the most powerful, and the best built vessels in the world. ”

“ At this time each nation was devoting its best talents to developing the material that lay nearest at hand; and while the American wooden-built type was earlier brought to perfection, its possibilities were more limited by natural causes. Greater economy, durability, and regularity of speed on the part of the iron screw steamer were the qualities that finally drove from the seas the far more picturesque and beautiful wooden sailing ship. ”