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388 Handicaps to Ship Building Handicaps to progress in the ship- building industry were referred to at length in an interesting paper on "Ship- building Practice of the Present and Future,' which was read before the In- stitution of Naval Architects at New- castle recently. "Methods of manufacture," said Mr. T. G. John, the author of the paper, "restrict the ambitions of the designer to certain narrow grooves from which he can expand but little. From this point of view it must be admitted that the improvements in appliances and methods of shipyard practice through- out the shipbuilding world in recent years have scarcely kept pace with the very great expansion of the industry. "Although in output, cheapness, and quality of work Great Britain still maintains its superiority in face of com- petition from other nations,' added Mr. John, "our shipbuilders have had to recognize during recent years the fact that several large Continental and American establishments have been ex- tensively developed and equipped with very efficient plant, and that they will in future enter more largely into com- petition with ourselves. This has had a stimulating effect, but to a certain ex- tent we have suffered handicap in this direction. Having been the pioneers of the iron shipbuilding industry, our es- tablishments were formed and _ our methods developed when competition was much less severe than it is today or is likely to be in the future. The close connection, too, which exists be- tween methods 'and working customs, especially at the present time, limits very considerably the abilities of ship- builders radically and quickly to alter existing practice." Such developments as have taken place are attributed by Mr. John to the in dimensions of ships built increase and the ever-persistent desire for economy. New methods of manufac- ture have influenced the developments to a comparatively small extent. Dealing with the alternations in the topography of the shipyard, it was pointed out that there existed in this country but one roofed-in building in which a modern battleship or liner could be built, and that except in one or: two instances where concrete had perforce to be used as an adjunct to piling to obtain a safe foundation, the average shipbuilder still constructed his ships without the luxury of a concrete or granite slipway, although it involved him in 'considerable more trouble in fairing them in carrying out their launching arrangements. Summarising the improvements in general plant and appliances, Mr. John referred to the increasing demand for THE MARINE REVIEW bending rolls capable of working large plate. Nine years ago, he said, a roll capable of bending a plate 30 feet long by 2 inches thick was considered gen- erally sufficient to meet future needs. Today plates up to 40 feet in length and 11. feet in breadth were being incor- porated in ship's construction. Professional opinion after 17 years' experience was still far from unanimous on the subject of pneumatic riveting, but most shipbuilders agreed that, given efficient "holding-up,' pneumatic rivet- ing in the hands of a moderately skill- ful workman was at least equal in quality to, and frequently excelled, hand work. An added virtue possessed by all pneumatic tools existed in the fact that in the hands of an otherwise inferior workman they could be made to give quite a good quality of work, which in times of scarcity of labor might other- wise be lost. A plea for simplification in the matter of operative power was fol- lowed by the suggestion that electricity seemed the most suitable prime energy for unification. Already it was possi- ble to purchase electrically operated riveting hammers and hydraulic riveters actuated by a self-contained electrically driven pump. Present-Day Weaknesses Three presumptions regarding the future were considered by Mr. John to be "fairly positive." The size of Ccer- tain types. of ships, he said, will con- tinue to expand. Economic competi- tion will increase in severity, and will become world-wide. It was scarcely reasonable, said the author, to assume that the steel ship of today would be the prototype as _ re- gards the structural details of the ship a century hence... It was equally cer- tain that the weakness of the ship today was to be found mostly in its smaller details. It might therefore be expected that many efforts in the future would go towards the improvement of. struc- tural details and of the methods by which such details were manufactured. The rivet and the water-tight bulk- head were used to illustrate this point. "ihe vivet' 'said Mr. John: . '8 cer- tainly a very positive method of con- nection, but there exists with it a mul- titude of small added weights, and a non-uniformity of strength and_ elas- ticity throughout the entire structure. A casual study of the typical water- tight bulkhead causes one to realise the necessary crudity of its design and con- struction in association with the vital functions which it has to perform." A great need existed in shipbuilding practice for the adoption of a reliable fusion process for connecting structural material. It was. not difficult to see that non-uniformity of strength was principally due to the rivetted forma- .sooner or October, 1914 tion. Oxy-acetylene welding had given up to present very poor results when applied to the ordinary materials of hull construction, and the electric arc when used on detail work also had_ given until recently very indifferent results. A patented process, however, had lately been evolved which promised better re- sults. This might be described as an electric fusion process, in which the weld was obtained by the addition of molten metal. Experiments, so far as they had gone, and allowing for want of experience on the part of the ope- rators, showed the ease of operation, the comparative cheapness of the pro- cess, and the efficiency of the results. Sooner or later a process of this nature would exert a considerable influence over future shipbuilding practice. In. conclusion, Mr. John suggested that it was not even certain that steel, at least as we knew it, would be the material to be used in ships of the more or less distant future. The science of metallurgy had made such rapid strides that it was reasonable to assume that later a metal might be evolved possessing all the good charac- teristics of present-day steel in an ac- centuated form, and in addition be less liable to corrosion. An Interesting Sidelight An interesting sidelight on the Euro- pean conflict was the effort of Herr Ballin, the chief figure in German ship- ping and personal friend of the Kaiser, to avert war. He interrupted a cure at Kissingen and went to London on June 23 ostensibly to conduct negotiations for the acquisition of oil fields in Califor- nia. In reality his visit was to consult with Lord Haldane, Sir Edward Grey and Winston L. S. Churchill. He dis- cussed the situation with them, and on return to Germany a special messenger from Berlin was sent through the German lines with a dispatch for Lord Haldane. No one realizes more than Herr Ballin the critical condition in which the German mercantile marine now is, be- cause even with the cessation of hos- tilities it will be many years before it recovers its recent prosperity, if ever it does so. On the German register there are 2,019 steamers of 4,743,046 tons gross, of them of modern con- struction, the tonnage the Hamburg-American Line and the North German Lloyd being just about half of that aggregate, while no fewer than 25 fine liners were being built for them. All the German members of the staff have rejoined the army, and Count Wen- gensky, its representative, left London last week a broken-hearted man. He is. captain in an infantry regiment. most owned by