THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



215 



R£ADY FOR OUTFITTING 



As soon as the Quistconck had left her shipway and was afloat on the waters of the 

 Delaware, a fleet of small tugs towed her to the fitting-out basin. In the meantime huge 

 cranes were laying the keel of a new vessel on the ways which the first Hog Island ship had 

 just quitted. 



makes for efficiency and permits all of 

 the speed achievements mentioned. 



Third, there have been marked im- 

 provements in the methods of hull con- 

 struction and assembling of material. As 

 pointed out before, the material for ships 

 is assembled in huge quantities. When 

 the time comes to put together this ma- 

 terial, the stuff is all there. 



STANDARDIZATION OF SHIP CONSTRUCTION 



There are other factors that play an 

 important part in our new speedy con- 

 struction. In the last few months, par- 

 ticularly, we have been working toward 

 the standardization of ship construction. 



Before the war every yard was build- 

 ing ships according to its own design. 

 Just as a dressmaker cuts out patterns 

 from a dress, a shipbuilder builds the 

 frame of a ship, and in the old days every 

 ship called for a different pattern. There 

 mav have been some vessels with double 



decks, some with triple. The types were 

 almost as many as the ships. That is 

 true to a certain extent today, for we are 

 only now getting the requisitioned ships 

 completed. As fast as they go off the 

 ways we are instituting our standardiza- 

 tion process. 



Soon we hope that each steel shipyard 

 on the market will be building a single 

 type of ship. The advantages of this are 

 obvious and are twofold: First, there is 

 the economical advantage from the build- 

 ing viewpoint ; second, there is the equally 

 advantageous saving from the viewpoint 

 of the ship-owner and the ship-buyer. 

 The saving in cost of construction be- 

 gins, with the standardized ship, in the 

 shops, scattered throughout the country, 

 which supply the material with which 

 ships are constructed. 



Take the matter of buying plates, for 

 example. When a shipyard, under the 

 standardization scheme, buys plates for 



