RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN SHIPYARD PLANTS. 



By Naval Constructor S. M. Henry, U. S. N., 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.] 



Prior to the demand for naval and merchant ships, resulting from the needs 

 of the present war, there had been for a number of years little development in the 

 shipyard plants. It was hard to make both ends meet, and very little money was 

 left for expansion, either in the amount of shipbuilding equipment or in its char- 

 acter. In the last three years these conditions have entirely changed, and sums of 

 money beyond the dreams of a few years ago have been provided with the view of 

 increasing the number of ships that could be built, and of allowing the more rapid 

 and less expensive construction of the larger vessels. 



Of that class of development, which consists in providing for a greater number 

 of vessels, we have seen the principal examples in the fabricating yards at Hog 

 Island, Newark Bay and Bristol, though the increase in number of ways available 

 has been by no means limited to these yards. Many ways have been added in other 

 yards, and entirely new plants have been built up. 



The second general line of development has resulted in providing bigger and 

 more modern building slips and larger and more effective shops, in order to permit 

 the construction of the capital ships provided in the Navy's three-year building pro- 

 gram, and to cut down the time of construction and save on the all-important item 

 of labor. Development along these lines has not been required for the merchant 

 program, and has, therefore, taken place only at the navy yards and at the plants of 

 the older shipyards which have in the past been the builders of the Navy's armored 

 vessels. 



From a purely engineering point of view that form of development is likely 

 to be the more interesting which provides for the building of the largest vessels, the 

 handling of the greatest weights, and, therefore, the construction of the largest 

 building ways and shops. Where the expansion of the shipbuilding facilities has 

 been obtained by the creation of new yards of a few ways each, it would not be ex- 

 pected that any unusual plant developments would result. In the case of the great 

 fabricating yards, there are, of course, many new problems, due to the vast size of 

 the undertakings ; but on the whole it is more a question of multiplying the slips and 

 other facilities such as exist in yards with few slips than the creation of new de- 

 signs of shops or new arrangements of slips and plants. The great increase in the 

 number of slips in the newer fabricating yards, which is required by the number of 

 vessels to be built and the short periods of construction contemplated, involves a 

 multiplication of the number of men formerly employed in shipyards, of the weight 



