WOODEN SHIPBUILDING.

Taihape Daily Times, 13 March 1918, Page 6

WOODEN SHIPBUILDING.

' One yard in Texas is to-day building 14 wooden steamships, 4700 tons deadweight capacity, completely equipped with machinery and everything ready rt or sea. In these days of improved wood-working machinery, the skill of the shipwright, one the autocrat of his trade is largely supplemented, and compressed air now does most of the work fastening, which forms a large percentage of ship-yard work. Another advantage of ithis .southern country is the small percentage of time lost. The winter climate is delightful and the summers while they are longer, really do not attain to much higher temperature than is reached in New York City. There is one shipyard starting in Morgan City, Louisiana on the banks of the Atchafalaya Eivere, 82 miles west of New Orleans. Three months ago this was a sugar-cane plantation. A bridge-building concern came along, saw the place, secured a contract for six 300-feet wooden steamships and to-day that cane-field has been changed into a modern wellquipped shipbuilding plant.