PIONEER CONCRETE SHIP.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1856, 23 July 1918, Page 2

PIONEER CONCRETE SHIP.

THE first British concrete ship has been completed. She took live months to build, but later vessels will be built probably in three, because the pioneer craft has been constructed according to the ordinary slop lines, which has meant greatly added la Pour and cost in making the wooden easing for the eonerete in order to gel, both longitudinally and transversely, the correct curves. Ear the next ship the. same mould will serve, and later easines will he V-shaped in section. In 111 is both lime and money will bo saved, if lines is sm rificcd. It was elginicd for this reinforced concrete ship that she was estimated to ho of superior strength to her steel sisters, and that, if hit by a torpedo, she would he less damaged than they, having no plates to start. As to her sea-going qualities, these, of course —though Norway eighteen months ago experimented with a small sea-going craft, of this kind — are all to prove. Being an experiment, and the designer having really no data to go upon, she was made of great strength—strength rather than lightness or economy was the aim of her designer. She is 150 ft. long, 213 ft. broad, and 13 Hr. deep, and has a draught of just under 11 feet; her displacement is 900 tons, and her deadweight carrying capacity 400 tons. She is divided by four watertight bulkheads into live compartments. She has been built according to Lloyd’s regulations, and has been classified Al. About 200 yards cube of concrete and sixtylive tons of steel bars were used in her construction. A mesh of steel runs through the “slab,” with a stiffening of steel rod frames at intervals. Probably she cost much about the same ns a steel ship to build, but only a quarter to a third of the steel which would ordinarily be used was required for her construction.