Skinner &amp; EddySkinner &amp; Eddy Skinner & Eddy The Skinner & Eddy Corporation, commonly known as Skinner & Eddy, was a Seattle, Washington-based shipbuilding corporation that existed from 1916 to 1923. The yard is notable for completing more ships for the United States war effort during World War I than any other American shipyard, and also for breaking world production speed records for individual ship construction. In total, the company built 75 ships—72 cargo ships and three oil tankers—from 1916 to 1920, including 32 completed for the Emergency Fleet Corporation during the war. The yard was closed in 1921 as a result of the severe postwar  shipbuilding slump. Skinner & Eddy later became a shipping line operator, and appears to have been wound up in the early 1970s. Background. The Skinner & Eddy Corporation was founded in January 1916 by two entrepreneurs, David E. "D.E." Skinner and John W. Eddy, owners of the Port Blakely Mill Company since 1903. Shortly after its establishment, Skinner & Eddy Corp. began leasing the shipyard of the Seattle Construction & Drydock Company, located between Connecticut and Dearborn Sts., Seattle. Seattle Construction & Dry Dock was itself a successor to the Moran Brothers shipyard, which around the start of the 20th century had been one of  America's largest shipyards, responsible for building Seattle's first battleship, , in 1906. On April 6, 1917, 15 months after Skinner and Eddy Corp. began leasing the yard, the United States entered World War I. Skinner & Eddy responded to the news by purchasing an additional of Seattle waterfront property from the Seattle Dock Company and the Centennial Flouring Mill for $1,500,000 and $600,000 respectively, which they used to begin building a second shipyard, which became known as Plant No. 2. After securing lucrative contracts from the Emergency Fleet Corporation for the construction of merchant ships for the war  effort, Skinner & Eddy was also able in June 1918 to make an outright purchase of the yard of Seattle Construction and Dry Dock, which was named Plant No. 1. Facilities. When completed, Skinner & Eddy's facilities included ten building slipways—five at each Plant—and four outfitting docks. A five-section, drydock capable of servicing vessels of up to 15,000 tons was also acquired, along with a 50-ton floating crane. Most of the ships built by the company during the war were constructed at Plant No. 1, as Plant No. 2 was still under construction for much of this  period. With its two plants, which together covered about of waterfront property, Skinner & Eddy was Seattle's largest shipbuilding company, at its wartime peak employing about 13,500 people. World War I. The first seven ships built by Skinner & Eddy were for private contractors. The company completed its first ship, "Niels Nielson", on November 9, 1916, and had completed a further two by the time the United States entered the war in April 1917. These three ships along with four partially completed vessels were then requisitioned for war service by the newly created United States Shipping Board (USSB). Thereafter, Skinner & Eddy  was to build ships exclusively for the USSB, through the latter's agency, the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFT). Skinner & Eddy soon began to distinguish itself by its production speed. Prior to its operations, a cargo ship built and delivered in the United States in under 250 days was considered fast, but as early as June 1917, the company under the capable direction of its general manager, David Rodgers, completed a freighter, "Stolt Nielson", in under 150 days. In November 1917, the company established a world keel-to-launch production speed record of under 70 days, maintaining and improving on the  record over the following five months. In early 1918, another U.S. company briefly established a new world keel-to-launch record of 61 days, but Skinner & Eddy recaptured the record in April with the 55-day launch of "West Lianga", a ship that was also completed in the record time of 80 days. Thereafter, all the company's ships built during the war were each completed in well under 100 days, with a best performance by war's end of 79 days from keel laying to delivery. Good management alone was probably not entirely responsible for the company's outstanding  performance however; Skinner & Eddy also paid its employees highly competitive wages, which enabled the company to attract the best and most skilled workers. The company's improved performance over time is also reflected in its total production figures. In 1917, the company produced a total tonnage of 72,800 tons; the following year it raised production more than threefold, to 232,400 tons. In all, Skinner & Eddy delivered 32 ships to the EFT, including 29 freighters and three tankers, over the course of the war—more than that of any other shipyard in the country. Postwar history. Since it was a widely  held belief in the United States that a shipbuilding boom would follow the end of hostilities, the USSB declined to cancel many of its wartime shipbuilding contracts at the end of the war. In Skinner & Eddy's case, this meant that the company was to complete a further 43 ships for the USSB in the postwar period. In 1920 however, the USSB cancelled a contract for an additional 25 ships, prompting the company to launch a $17 million claim against the government for lost anticipated profits, later reduced to a $9 million claim. Skinner & Eddy delivered its last  ship in February 1920, but failed to secure any further shipbuilding contracts after this date because of the severe postwar shipbuilding slump. In 1923, the Skinner & Eddy shipyard was permanently closed, and the company's proprietors, D.E. Skinner and John Eddy, dissolved their longstanding business partnership. John Eddy returned to the lumber business, and Skinner became sole proprietor of the Skinner & Eddy Corporation, which retained its original name. Skinner & Eddy now entered the shipping line business with the purchase of the Pacific Steamship Company, which operated from the company's former Plant No. 2. The company also invested heavily in  Alaskan salmon canneries. In 1944, Skinner & Eddy bought the Alaska Steamship Company, and in the postwar period also operated a cruise line. D.E. Skinner's grandson, David E. "Ned" Skinner II, discontinued the business in 1971, moving the family assets into real estate. His Skinner Corporation would eventually become one of America's largest private companies. The ships. Skinner & Eddy produced a total of 75 ships from 1916 to 1920 (the yard no. sequence ends at 76 as the number 13 was skipped). Most of the ships were freighters, but three 10,000-ton tankers were amongst the seven ships built  for private contractors prior to the U.S. entry into World War I. The company built three different types of standard freighters for the USSB, all of them of Skinner & Eddy's own design. The USSB designated these types as Design 1013, Design 1079 and Design 1105 respectively. The Design 1013 ships were 8,800 tons deadweight, with a length of 423 feet 9 inches (410 ft between perpendiculars), beam of and hold depth of Some examples of this type of ship were turbine powered and others were fitted with triple expansion engines. Some were also completed as oil fired and others  as coal fired vessels. Skinner & Eddy built a total of 24 ships of this type. Most of the ships completed by the company during the war were of this type. The Design 1079 was of 9,600 tons deadweight, turbine-powered and oil fired, with dimensions of 409.6 x 54.2 x . Skinner & Eddy was the only company which built this type. A total of 23 were completed. The Design 1105 was also 9,600 tons deadweight, oil-fired and with triple expansion engines. Dimensions were 401.5 x 54.8 x . Again, Skinner & Eddy was the only company which produced this type. A total  of 14 were built. Additionally, eleven 8,800 deadweight-ton freighters, similar if not identical to the Design 1013s were built prior to the manufacture of the USSB types listed above. All types had a typical service speed of between 11 and . In service. Of the first 39 ships built by Skinner & Eddy during and shortly after World War I, 23 were immediately commissioned on completion into the U.S. Navy, and served briefly as supply ships before decommissioning in 1919. A further three were assigned Navy ID's but never commissioned. In 1921, three Skinner & Eddy ships (including one of those  previously assigned a Navy ID) were converted into destroyer tenders and commissioned into the U.S. Navy as , and respectively. All three of these vessels would remain in Navy service through the end of World War II. Only one Skinner & Eddy ship was lost (to enemy action) in World War I. In the interwar period, most of the company's vessels were engaged in commercial service. Three, , "Elkton" and "Nile" were lost to maritime accidents in the 1920s, and seven more were scrapped in the 1930s, probably because of the oversupply of shipping. World War II took a heavy toll of  Allied merchant vessels, and of the 64 Skinner & Eddy ships that saw service in the war, 31, or almost 50%, were lost to enemy action, most of them to U-boats. Another two were deliberately sunk as breakwaters during the Normandy Campaign. The 31 that survived the war were mostly scrapped in the late 1940s and 1950s, and only four were still in existence by 1960. The last Skinner & Eddy vessel to see service was probably "Edray", transferred to the Soviet Union under lend-lease during World War II and scrapped in 1967. Fate of the shipyards. Following the closure  of the Skinner & Eddy shipyards in 1923, the company's Plant No. 2 was sold in 1924 to the Pacific Steamship Company, which built a new office and terminus on the site. The site also became the terminus of the Admiral Line, which did considerable trade with Siberia and the Orient. With the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, the site became a Hooverville for Seattle's unemployed. During World War II, the Hooverville was razed to make way for a huge supply depot run by the Army Quartermaster Corps, and after the war it became a base for  the U.S. Coast Guard. As of 2003, the site was the location for several large container shipping terminals. Skinner & Eddy's Plant No. 1, meanwhile, has become part of Seattle's SoDo district. Production history. The following table represents a complete list of all ships built by the Skinner & Eddy Corporation. Ships marked with an asterisk are those assigned ID numbers by the Navy but never commissioned. Fields marked with a hyphen indicate that the given field is not applicable to this particular ship. Gross tonnage values (GRT) use the nominal GRT for the ship type (identifiable by a "00  in the last two digits) where a more precise GRT is not available for the individual ship. Consult the table legend for additional information about the table. References. Books and journals" "Websites" Skinner & Eddy The Skinner & Eddy Corporation, commonly known as Skinner & Eddy, was a Seattle, Washington-based shipbuilding corporation that existed from 1916 to 1923. The yard is notable for completing more ships for the United States war effort during World War I than any other American shipyard, and also for breaking world production speed records for individual ship construction. In total, the company built 75 ships—72 cargo ships