5000 TONNER EVERY TWO DAYS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 50, 22 November 1917, Page 5

5000 TONNER EVERY TWO DAYS

AMERICAN YARDS OUT TO BEAT ALL

RECORDS

HUGE STANDARDISED PROGRAMME

Preliminary orders, calling for 1,500,000 tons of American steel shipping, were recently distributed between the Submarine Boat Corporation, the American International Corporation, and the Merchants' Shipbuilding Company. The Submarine Boat Corporation's yard will be at Port Newark terminal, on Newark Bay, and here twenty-eight shipways will be laid. This yard, comprising 126 acres, will turn out 200 vessels of a 5000-ton typo. Tho Merchants' Shipbuilding Company's yard will be situated at Chester, Pennsylvania, and the American International Corporation will build vessels at Hog Island, near Philadelphia. Tho unique feature of tho vessels to bo built, by the Submarine Boat Corporation lies in tho fact that tliey will be constructed of structural steel instead of ship steel. Moreover, tho parts will bo so standardised that tho vessels will bo put together _ rapidly. Tho Submarine Boat Corporation built five hundred submarine chasers for the British Government on one pattern, and by standardising tho parts was able to turn out three hulls a day. The company now purposes to apply similar methods to large vessels. Its plans were worked out several months ago, rad laid bofore the _ Shipping tioard, the company maintaining that tho resources of tho country lav in structural steel, and not in ships or timber, and that the wooden-slnp plan was not practicable on a largo scale. Science of standardisation. Tho soienco of standardisation, explained Mr. Sutphen (vice-president of tho Submarine Boat Corporation), is tho key to the plan for an emergency fleet of steel vessels. The use of the standard part and the reduplicated plan calls up bohind tho shipyards the accumulated power of tho steel fabricating shops throughout tho country, while tho application of structural steel to ship construction in tho place of specifio ship steel opens tho field for the co-operation of construction companies and steel workers that have nover put a rivet in a ship's beam. Mr. Sutphen dwelt on tho larger meaning of this industrial drive at tho heart of tho ocean trade situation. Tho intense nature of the programmo and tho significance that attaches to its success raises the issue to_ tlie level of national interest, lie explained. Vital to this success is an enlightened and sympathetic view throughout the country with regard to tho shipping question, and a public spirit on the part of tho vast enrolment of labour it will demand. Care had been taken to handle the labour problem fairly. There will be no dragooning of men from distant places, as is common in so many enterprises. Newark is a natural labour centre. A large labour population liveß within a radius of ten miles of the yards. Tho workers released by the completion of subway lines, steel frame buildings, and bridges will be drawn directly info the shipyard. That is not tho only meaning of structural steel ships, said Mr. Sutphen. The oountry's capacity for ship steel, cast at specifio angles and assembled in requisite forms, is limited to tho utmost degree. On tho other hand, resource in structural members is onormous. Shops all over the country manufacture the beams and assomble the joists that go into tho manifold steel _ construc- j tion work for which Amorica is famous.

High-Speed Construotion. According to the revised plans for the framing of ships with structural steel) the Submarine Boat Corporation was enabled to place templets and patterns in more than a hundred fabricating shops throughout the country. Complicated parts aro assembled within the clearance demanded for their transportation by railroad. With the reduplication of the plan a shop can specialise on a particular structural member and manufacture that member for all the ships of the type. The number of men engaged on the construction of a 6hip will constitute a force more than three times as great as that actually at work on the ways. The design of the 5000-ton freighters follows the very highest specification. When the ships take their first cargo to European countries they will have a first-class ratine from the American Bureau of Shipping as well as from Lloyd's. Turbine engines will be used as motive power for the vessels. It has been recognised that in speed and control lies the greatest security ot ooean vessels whea opposed to the submarine. The merchantmen of the American fleet aia to have every requisite of design ind power to enable them to carry on the commerce of the world in the face of the "U-boat peril.

In discussing Jhe wooden vessel, Mr. Sutphen pointed out, that aside from the doubtful seafaring qualities of such vessels, there was the question of their use' after the war. Timber-work, ho pointed 'out, had to be put together 011 the ways and every member had to be shaped. The stra.iji of the work \vould have fallen upon i-he workers pj; the yards. These shipwrfghts were too few in number, he eaid 4 and there was 110 possibility of recruiting tho industrial resources of tho jjQjenor. The result of tho application of American engineering talent to the rapid production of ships lias been the _ perfection of a system that will, it is believed, go far towards the establishment of a record in shipbuilding. When tho plant of the Submarine Boat Corporation is working at full capacity a 5000ton steamer will be launched every two days. The time required for the completion of a ship, and the date at which the first vessel will be launched, are not being given out, on the theory that it would furnish knowledge of value to the enemy. The three yards will cost, it is understood, about 35,000,000 dollars (£7,000,000 roughly).