Wooden Ships to Save 



The most important principle in wood con- 

 struction discovered since Noah built the Ark 



By Joseph Brinker 



England 



Int. Film Scrv. 



New England has witnessed a rebirth of the shipbuilding industry. One thousand wooden vessels 

 are being built in yards which have been idle since the days of the great American merchant marine 



SHIPS, ships and then more ships is the 

 crying need of Great Britain to her 

 new ally America, as expressed re- 

 cently by Lloyd George, in a speech to 

 Americans in London. England's fore- 

 most statesmen realize the seriousness of 

 the submarine problem. Submarines are 

 being built faster than they are being sunk; 

 merchant tonnage is being sunk fast 

 er than it is being built. The 

 submarine must be conquered. 



England looks to America 

 for help. New merchant 

 marines must be launched 

 quickly if they are to be of 

 any avail. Without ships, 

 we cannot deliver the supplies 

 that we must throw into the 

 balance. 



Yankee ingenuity has risen 

 to the occasion. While ship 

 steel is scarce because of the 

 great demands upon the steel 

 industry for ammunition, rails 

 and other kindred supplies, wood 

 is plentiful and readily available. 

 The problem thus resolves itself 

 into one of providing the means 



William T. Donnelly, 

 the designer of the new 

 wooden ship capable 

 of carrying more than 

 five thousand tonnage 



860 



whereby wood can be utilized for ships of 

 sufficient tonnage to make their operation 

 commercially feasible. 



William T. Donnelly, a New York 

 engineer and naval architect, has devised a 

 construction for wooden ships capable of 

 carrying 5,500 tons of freight, or approxi- 

 mately twice the amount which any type of 

 wooden ship heretofore built has 

 been able to carry. His new design 

 provides for a vessel 350 feet 

 long, 50 feet beam and 30 feet 

 deep. The new type of boat 

 is almost entirely of wood. 

 In each ship 1,500,000 

 board feet of southern yel- 

 low pine take the place of 

 2,300 tons of steel. 



Why Steel Took the 

 Place of Wood 



In the past, wooden ships 

 have been driven off the seas by 

 vessels made of steel not because 

 the former were made of wood 

 but because wooden ships had to 

 be made smaller. Why smaller? 

 Because our naval architects did 



