The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1918-08-01
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ship out of the way and with a force of care
fully chosen wOrkmen, the keel of the collier was
laid and assembling rushed.
The keen to make good and they
IabOred with unffagging zeal. Not only that, but
they worked in three shifts and speeded up the
building continuously night and day. There
fore they were able at the end of q days to put
the craft overheard.
This makes it plain why in ordinary times
three four months were required to advance a
ship far enough to warrant launching and why
it took two three months to install her
gines and boilers and to get her otherwise out
fitted and finished for active service. In the
case of the TuckahOe her builders found it pos
sibe to accumulate all of the materials needed
and she started to forge ahead to her as
sembling without a hitch.
But though the pace set by the West
Lianga and the TuckahOe cannot be maintained
generally by Old-line shipbuilding plants still
most of these are in position today to produce
faster than heretofore because of mechanical aids
now at their disposal And what was done at
Camden in turning out the TuckahOe is doubIy
interesting because the practice there may be
Hkened in a measure to what is termed the
fabricated ship
a very vexatiOus situation that had a number
of angles. First, for ship construction it
needful to draw upon steel workers and allied
labor who quite unfamiliar with ship
building Next, it essential that steel
plants that were capable of producing the ma
terias for bridges, the framework of great office
buildings and the steel parts of other land struc
lures should be made available and their tom
mage utilized in the construction of the manifold
parts for OceangOing cargo carriers Finally, con-
venient points deep water had to be chosen
for the assembling OF these elements which were
manufactured far and wide and delivered at the
places of building in a more or less advanced
stage of fabrication.
The fabricated ship is not, strictly speaking,
type of vessel, but rather standardized order
construction which depends primarily upon
measure of advanced preparatory work done
plants remote from the shipyard and done so
we'll and accurately that similar parts are iden-
teal and be put in any of a group Of
type huIls of corresponding dimensions. Inter
changeability is the paramount requirement
The three distinctive fabricating yards on the
Atlantic seabOard are the Newark bay plant
of the Submarine Boat corporation the Hog is
land plant of the American international cOrpor-
alton, and the yard of the Merchants Shipbuild-
ing corporation at Bristol Pa. Because OF the
way in which these establishments laid out
and because they receive their materials ninety
odd per cent ready for erection and assembling
and therefore need proportionately fewer on
the spot per ship than otherwise would be re-
quired it is practicable for them to handle at
time unusually large number of vessels.
While the materials manufactured at some
Of different steel mills they true
to dimensions thanks to drawings Of excep-
tional accuracy and fullness of detail and pat
terms that are exact in every particular. that the
independent concerns be relied upon to fur
nish just what is wanted
Chairman Hurley of the Emergency Fleet cor
poratfOn has told that should be able TO
turn out annually quite 100000 tons of wooden
craft This means not only exceptional indus
try on our part, but it represents the surmOunt-
ing OF seemingly mountainous obstacles. But
his confidence is far justified in the scores of
our old and new timber plants that he has re-
Gently ordered approximately 200 additional