TYPISTE LAUNCHES SHIP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 May 1941, Page 6

TYPISTE LAUNCHES SHIP

ls NEW ROLE FOR OFFICE WORKER. INERVOUS MOMENTS ADMITTED s 1 Twenty-one-year-old Miss Florence Franklin admits she was nervous. As n a typiste working in a shipyard, she is ° accustomed to seeing the launching of great ships; but it was a new experionce to stand before the towering bows holding a be-ribboned bottle of champagne while the shipwrights knocked the blocks away. Miss Franklin, chosen by ballot, was the first typiste to launch a great ship in this democratic age. All the same, it was the skilled workmen, hidden up beneath the dark belly of the ship on each side of the tallow-greased slipways, who bore the great responsibility of knocking away i the three-inch square battens which I held the vast bulk in position. I Teddy Turner and Harry Ditchburn . t known as Snozzle throughout the • yard because of his nose) had a clear twenty-five seconds in which to sprint from beneath the moving hull. It was as great, an occasion for them as it was for Miss Franklin, standing, ! lonely and excited, on the launching | platform. I On the north-east coast nowadays j launchings tire not attended by great ' ceremony. But when these men. with | shipbuilding in their blood, have ■ watched a great ship grow under their 'hands there is a natural undercurrent lof excitement and wonder at the ; moment of her launching. The yard turned up in force to watch Miss Franklin ring the bell which told i ’l eddy and Harry way down amidships beneath the keel when to knock away , the last pauls. I Breaking a champagne bottle over [the bows is not as easy as one might • think The bubbly went up the sleeve l ’f Miss Franklin's coat and splashed I about in the most unexpected way. There was an incident, after the launching which few had expected, but which is a good omen. A gang of men slung a section of a new keel on the blocks which the new vessel was. even at that moment leaving. Il was the beginning of another new ship, and men in the yard went to work on her as soon as the tugs began nosing the completed hull away to be fitted with engines. Shipbuilding is a non-stop process these days.