AMERICA'S WOODEN WHIPS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1727, 19 June 1917, Page 2

AMERICA'S WOODEN WHIPS.

SOME interesting-details of America’s intentions in regard to shipbuilding are given in the Xew York Times. The article says: —‘‘Imagine a schooner of the coasting trade without sails, with her .masts cut down to hoisting derricks and a stumpy smokestack sticking up about midship, and you will gel a mental picture of the proposed emergency craft. The estimated new output from American shipyards will be at the rate of 200,000 tons a month in the wooden vessels and 120,000 tons a month in steel ships. The approved model of the wooden craft shows a steam vessel 200 ft. over all, 40 ft. beam, and 20 ft. depth. Each vessel will have a cargo capacity for 3,500 tons, and will draw 12ft. light. The power will be from steam engines with old-fash-ioned water-tube boilers, using crude oil for fuel, and with some burning device for reducing to a minimum the amount of visible smoke. The ordinary cruising speed will be 10 knots all hour, with an emergency capacity in a danger zone of 12 or 13 knots. In addition to her engine for motive power each boat will be equipped with eight hoisting engines for the operation of the denicks in quick loading and discharging of cargo. Under emergency conditions, and under the stress of need for supplies on the other side, each of these vessels should be able to make .10 round trips a year between American and English or French ports. The cost of building and equipping each wooden vessel will be TOO,OOO, or just about half the cost of a steel vessel of the same capacity. The limber required is not a drop in the bucket as compared with the country's annual supply of new lumber. The wood that will lie used will be Oregon hr in the Pacific Coast yards, long-leaf yellow pine in the South, and pine in the Maine yards. Much of the material will be standardised, and this, together with some uniformity of method and organisation in all the yards engaged in the operation, will hasten results. It is estimated now that it will require about four months from the laying of a keel to the pushing of the hull off the ways, and then another month or six week's for completing the vessel for her worlc. In other words, the Shipping Board'expects to place the iirsl ships of the cargo licet at the service of the countries a I war in six months.