The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1918-07-19

ship out of the way and with q force of care
fully chosen workmen. the keel of the collier was
laid and assembling rushed.
The men were keen to make good and they
labOred with unfagging 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 1t plain why in ordinary times
three four months were required to advance a
ship far enough to warrant launching and why
Ii took two or three months to install her en-
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
sble to accumulate oil Of the materials needed
and once she was started to forge ahead to her
sembling without a hitch.
But though the pace set by the West
Langa and the Tuckahoe cannot be maintained
generally by Old-line shipbuilding plants still
most of these in position today to produce
faster than heretofore because of mechanical aids
at their disposal. And what was done at
Camden I'm turning out the TuckahOe is doubly
interesting because the practice there may be
likened in measure to what is now termed the
fabricated ship
The fabricated ship was offered as a solution Of
very veyatlOus situation that had number
Of angles. First, for ship construction it
neCdfu to draw upon steel workers and allied
labor who were quite unfamiliar with ship
essential
plants that were capable of producing the ma
terals for bridges, the framework of great office
buildings and the steel parts Of other land struc-
lures should be made available and their ton
mage utilized In the construction of the manifold
parts for oceangoing cargo carriers. Finally, con-
venent points on 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 more or less advanced
stage of fabrication.
The fabricated ship is not. strictly speaking,
a type of vessel, but rather standardized order
construction which depends primarily upon
a measure Of advanced preparatory work done
at plants remote from the shipyard and done so
well and accurately that similar parts are den-
teal and can be put in any one Of q group Of
type hulls Of corresponding dimensions. Inter
changeability Is the paramount requirement.
The three distinctive fabricating yards on the
Atlantic seaboard 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 men
the spot per ship than otherwise would be re-
quired 1t is practicable for them TO handle at
time an unusually large number Of vessels.
While the materials are manufactured at some
score Of different steel mills they true
TO dimensions thanks 10 drawings of excep-
tional accuracy and fullness of detail and pat
terms that are exact in every particular that the
independent concerns can be relied upon to fur
nish just what Is wanted.
Chairman Hurley of the Emergency Fleet
poration has told that should be able to
turn olt annually quite 100000 tons Of wooden
craft. This means not only exceptional indus
try on our part, but 1t represents the surmount-
ing OF seemingly mountainous obstacles. But
his confidence IL SO far justified in the scores OF
our old and new timber plants that he has re-
gently orde.:.r ,,s