176 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN SHIPYARD PLANTS. 



of material handled, of the provisions necessary for the receipt and unloading of 

 cars, and of many of the other problems involved in the operation of the yards. 



BUILDING AND REPAIRING. 



So far the expansion of the shipyards of the country has been almost entirely 

 in the direction of shipbuilding. After the vessels now being turned out in large 

 mimbers by the Emergency Fleet Corporation have been put in service, there will 

 be a gradual shifting of the burden from the building to the repairing yards. It is 

 perhaps well to look somewhat into the basis by which the capacities of both build- 

 ing and repairing yards can be considered. 



So far as building is concerned, the natural unit is the building slip. A yard 

 with so many slips should be able to turn out a definite number of vessels per year, 

 depending on the length of time during which a vessel must remain on the ways. 

 All other calculations are based on the number of slips provided and the estimated 

 length of time that the vessels are to remain on the slips ; that is, the extent of the 

 shops, of the storehouses, of the fitting-out berths required, and the number of men 

 that it is expected to employ; therefore provisions for housing and transportation 

 are all a function of the number of slips and the length of time on the slips. 



In passing from consideration of the building problem to the repair problem, 

 this general method of viewing the question is lost, and some other basis of esti- 

 mate must be adopted. The one which seems most nearly to meet the problem is 

 the amount of berthing space, that is, the number of vessels that can be drawn into 

 a yard at one time on which repairs can be carried out. Assuming a definite amount 

 of berthing space, the maximum number of ships that can be under repair at a time 

 is determined, and the extent of shops and the number of men for which provision 

 must be made follows more or less automatically. 



With a basis for arriving at the facilities required per building slip, and simi- 

 larly per hundred feet or per thousand feet of berthing space, means are available 

 for arriving at a reasonable judgment as to the total requirements for. yards engaged 

 on both new construction and repair work. Some of the more important elements 

 of the shipyards, especially those involving greatly increased size or capacity, as 

 compared to the earlier installations, will be briefly touched on. 



BUILDING SLIPS. 



The building slip itself, apart from weight handling facilities, has undergone 

 comparatively little change. Concrete has been extensively used, but the majority 

 of the new slips are of wood pile construction, and there is nothing unusual in their 

 size except in the comparatively limited number of slips being provided for capital 

 ship construction. These, in general, make provision for ships of a maximum length 

 of i,ooo feet and beam of no feet, being the limiting size of vessels that can pass 

 through the Panama Canal locks. So far as the beam is concerned, this does not 

 represent a very radical increase over the largest battleships previously built, but 



