The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

472 THE MARINE REVIEW reason was never requisitioned ~ ex- tensively for armor backing. In the Philippines it is regarded as one of the best woods for axles, beams, bridges, cabinet making, yokes, cogwheel teeth, general high-grade construction, docks, Emergency Fleet's and general. manager of the Emergency Fleet corporation, in outlining its policy toward concrete ships and their relation to steel and wood craft, disclosed some interesting points on the policy of the shipping board and the Fleet corporation. Mr. Piez's statement in full was as fol- lows: "A statement recently has appeared criticising the concrete shipbuilding policy of the United States shipping board Emergency Fleet corporation. This statement is so far from repre- One PIEZ, vice president senting the actual facts, that, unless" corrected, may lead to wholly wrong conclusions on the part of the public. "The statement seems to be based on the conception there is a wholly untouched reservoir of both raw ma- terials and labor, which can be used without burdening transportation fa- cilities and without impairing in any possible respect the output of either _ steel or wooden ships now under contract. . "The statement also is predicated on the rather general, but wholly erroneous notion that a ship is simply a hull, losing sight of the fact that the equipment of a 7500-ton concrete cargo carrier, is exactly the same as the equipment of a 7500-ton steel car- tier. The Measurement of Capacity "The statement, fails also, to recog- nize that, because of the limitations in our power and ship equipment producing capacity, our output of ships is measured by the number of vessels we can equip rather than by the number of hulls that we can launch. Facilities for the production of power equipment, deck equipment and other ship equipment, have stead- ily been added to and the production is constantly increasing. But, even today, the hull producing capacity of the country in steel and wood ships is in excess of what may be termed the power and equipment pro- ducing capacity for fitting out these ships. The mere addition of an- omer 140 ways, turning out, as the author suggests, from 400 to 450 concrete hulls aggregating over two and one-half million tons would, even doors, finishing of houses, flooring, footing in the ground, posts, joists, knees, piles, pillars, pinions, planks, plows, rafters, rice mortars, shipbuild- ing, cutwaters, ships' knees, ribs, frames, siding of houses, sleepers, stemposts, if that construction program were possible of execution, add not a single ship to our fleet. "As a carrier, the steel ship-is ad- mittedly from 15 to 20 per cent more 'effective than a wooden or concrete ship of similar tonnage. The Emer- gency Fleet corporation has, there- fore, been wise in concentrating its 'efforts on the construction of steel tonnage and treating the wood and concrete ships as purely emergency agencies. Is Building to Equipment Limit "The fleet corporation is at present building all the wooden ships that the resources of raw and finished material necessary will permit. Its program -of steel ship construction likewise is planned up to the limit of the steel, machinery and equipment possibili- ties. The output of steel ships and of wooden ships is constantly in- creasing, but we have not yet reached anything like the possibilities of out- put in steel construction. The out- put of steel plates and shapes of our rolling mills still is considerably greater than the needs of steel ship- building at its present rate of pro- duction. Mr. Schwab's concern, in securing a proper distribution of. the available steel supply, is not that the steel output may not meet our present needs, but that it may not meet the greatly expanded needs of our future plans. -He is bringing the subject up in time that steps may be taken to increase steel producing capacity in conformity with plans of steel ship construction. "The statement boundless possibilities of the concrete ship and intimates that it is wholly the product of unskilled) workers-- workers, we presume, that could find no place in either existing steel or wooden shipyards. The writer loses sight of the fact that only 60 per cent of the total labor is connected with the hull construction. Fully 40 per cent of the total labor is connected with the installation of machinery and equipment. Labor connected with in- stallation is the most highly skilled and most difficult to secure, and on this account any considerable expan- sion of the concrete shipbuilding' pro- October, 1918 sugar presses, wedges, wheel rims, undersills, paving blocks and for many other uses. It is regarded by many judges as being equal to or even superior to teak for many important purposes. iew of Concrete Ships gram would interfere immediately and substantially with the program. of ship construction now under way. "The, author of the statement. is probably unaware of the fact that both the material and labor resources of the country: are being taxed to their utmost by the war's demands; that there is no great available reser- voir of even the kind of labor that he thinks could be used in construct- ing concrete ships, and that any ex- pansion of the shipbuilding program, by adding a new type of character of vessel is made only at the ex- pense of existing contracts. "The board of trustees of the Emer- gency Fleet corporation recognized at a very early date the fact that the limitations lay, not in hull construc- tion, but in machinery equipment and installation, and their policy with re- gard to concrete ships resulted from recognition of these limitations and not from any inherent prejudice against the concrete ship, nor from any lack of courage to try a new venture. As a matter of fact, the Fleet corporation began work on the actual design of concrete ships in December and has developed a tech- nical division for this character of construction unequalled anywhere. Construction of five government- owned yards having four ways each, but capable of considerable expansion, was begun months ago, and these yards are now being: constructed at an expense of $5,000,000, representing about $250,000 per way instead of $60,000 per way, the figures specified _ by the author of this statement. dwells on the Early Estimates Are Modified "The statement quotes at length from a report made by R. J. Wig, chief of the concrete ship department of the Emergency Fleet corporation, and accepts the statements and rec- ommendations of a gentleman who is an enthusiastic supporter of the con- crete ship as representing the actual producing capacity of the country. Mr. Wig's estimates in regard to the cost of yards has undergone serious modification, and his estimate of pos- sible ship production has, in the light of broader and more intimate experi- ence with conditions surrounding all Bs Hels on ia i a eB e s a