STRUCTURAL STEEL STANDARDIZED CARGO VESSELS. 

 By Henry R. Sutphen, Esq., Member. 



[Read at the twenty-sixth general meeting of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, held in 



Philadelphia, November 14 and IS, 1918.] 



The war has brought about a new type of ship construction, commonly re- 

 ferred to as "fabricated ships," which only in part describes the new method that 

 we have had to solve in manufacturing structural steel cargo vessels at the Newark 

 Bay shipyard. 



Our problem was one of quantity production, thereby necessitating thorough 

 standardization of design, ship material, fabrication and assembly. 



By referring to the newspapers during the months of March and April, 1917, 

 before and after we entered the war, one will note with interest how much discus- 

 sion there was over the problem of new ship construction made absolutely impera- 

 tive by our entrance into the great world war. Some suggested large numbers of 

 small wooden ships of 1,600 tons burden, with high speed. Others demanded 

 larger ships, and many agreed that wood was the only material available to con- 

 struct the emergency fleet. 



In the fall of 1916 the Submarine Boat Corporation had completed for the 

 British Admiralty 550 submarine chasers which were built of wood, the hull ma- 

 terial having been fabricated in its Bayonne, New Jersey, shops and assembled into 

 the finished boats at Montreal and Quebec, Canada. This was the first large boat 

 manufacturing project ever attempted and was successfully completed ahead of con- 

 tract time ; it was the "model experiment" for the far greater task we are now en- 

 gaged in of furnishing to the United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Cor- 

 poration one hundred and fifty 5,000-ton steel cargo ships. 



Our experience in obtaining the proper quality of material for wooden boat con- 

 struction, an art that had practically disappeared, made us feel certain that the large 

 tonnage desired in wooden ships would be most difficult to obtain, not only on account 

 of material, but also because of the shortage in wooden shipbuilding labor. Fur- 

 ther, while wood could be fabricated into boat material, nevertheless the material 

 would not stay put like steel, due to shrinkage, checking and rot. 



Upon investigation we learned that the output of ship steel for months to come 

 had already been allotted to the established shipyards for merchant work then under 

 way and for naval requirements. We therefore recommended to the United States 

 Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation in April, 19 17, that in place of wood 

 we be permitted to submit a plan for manufacturing steel ships to be built with the 

 ordinary commercial structural steel as had been employed in building our skyscrap- 



