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464 fire guns, and twenty-two 3-mch, 50- caliber, rapid-fire guns. Between the delivery of the first WASHINGTON and the. launching of the MARINE REVIEW battleship of this name, the New York Shipbuilding Corp. has built for the United States navy. 7 battleships, 40 torpedo boat destroyers anJ one de- October, 1921 strcyer tend2r, and now ha; under con- struction the battleships CoLorapo and WASHINGTON and the battle cruiser SARATOGA. Few Contracts N Ow Reaching Shipyards been marking time. With little more than 700,000 tons of shipbuild- ing under contract, the yards of the United States are facing the necessity of waiting patiently until conditions alter. This situation is intensified by the revision of the policies of the ship- ping board. Chairman Lasker: has indi- cated that he is through with the old system of allocation and some new form of contract with the private op- erators must be worked out whereby the costs of operation are shifted from the government. This means an intensive campaign to sell the govern- ment’s fleet and failing in that to charter the boats to the operators upon a bare- boat plan. Offers to Sell 12 Ships The Anderson Overseas Corp., acting as agent for the board, had entered negotiations to sell 12 ships to foreign buyers. These included ships of the sub- marine boat and lake type, but ‘the fall in exchange rates made it impossible to expect the deals to go through. There- fore, the board canceled its agency agreement with the Anderson corpora- tion’ and will attempt to dispose of the ships first in the American market. An effort was made to sell the total wooden fleet and 12 of the ex-German ships were offered for sale during Aug- ust. The bids on the latter were rejected because the board decided ‘a it must obtain cash for the ships. T will be reoffered with a minimum price set. Furthermore the passenger ships which were under charter to the old United States Mail line will be offered for sale and there is hope that an actual sale may be. accomplished. In the meantime the reconditioning of the shipping board’s vessels has been held up. Owing to this revision of policy on the part of the board, repair work has been rather scarce in the eastern district and reports indicate a still futher decline in immedi- ate prospects. _ Some contracts, however, have been awarded. The Governor’s Island ferry- boat GENERAL Orts will be reconditioned by the Tebo Yacht Basin Co., Brook- lyn, at a cost of $15,750. The United American line steamer SUFFOLK will be overhauled at the plant of the Morse Dry Dock & Repair Co., Brooklyn, BS cai ioadiue in the east has ._ been considering these bids _ yards which was awarded the work on a low bid. of $20,500. The Sun Shipbuilding Co. Chester, Pa. made the low bid on reconditioning the shipping board’s Lon- don liner PANHANDLE STATE, which work contemplated the installation of steerage quarters. The bid was $139,554, but the shipping board has decided to suspend the prosposed work and the ship has been scheduled for transatlantic service during September. The Norwegian American line is now considering bids offered by ‘American yards to convert the passenger ship STAVANGERFJORD to an oil burner. This line had the BERGENSFJORD converted to an oil-burner in the United States some time ago. American yards are bidding on the new work in competition with British, German and Scandinavian yards. The army transport service has decided to have repairs made to the transport MapAwaskA at the Shooters Island, N. Y., yard of the Standard Shipbuilding Corp. The work will include the in- stallation of three one single-ended Scotch boilers, new tank tops and considerable refrigeration space. The United American lines will have the collier FRANKLIN overhauled. The United States engineer office has let a contract with the Drayo Contract- ing Co., Pittsburgh, for a‘:drill boat. The boat will be 140 feet in length, equipped with two water tube boilers fitted with the oil burning system. She will have ten rock drill engines and four cargo winches. The cost will be $431,500. Low Bids on Liners It is reported that the bids on the two Red D line passenger boats, 4300 dead- weight tons each, ranged from $1,100,000 to $1,800,000 per ship. The line has for some time and it is expected that a contract will be made before long. Naval architects considered the bids very low and expressed the conviction that the were willing to take the work at approximately cost in order to keep their organizations together. The Mer- chant Shipbuilding Corp., Chester, Pa., has been awarded the contract for the second police boat purchased by the city of Philadelphia. The cost will be $212,490, and the boat will be completed within seven months. Various reports have been current re- garding the intention of Henry Ford, the Detroit automobile manufacturer, enter- ing the shipbuilding field to produce fabri- cated boats. It was reputed that Ford wishes to purchase the Victory plant in Squantum, Mass., for his experiment. Another report current during the month was that Ford is considering the opera- tion of a fleet of self-propelled freight barges between Detroit and the seaboard via the Erie canal. The principal shipbuilding companies on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts employ approximately 40,000 less shipyard work- men than they did a year ago. The reduction in employment has been esti- mated to have been approximately 45 per cent during the year. The slump has, naturally, enabled the yards to dis- pose of the services of much inefficient labor. “Another Wage Cut is Made Me At the. Harlan plant of the Bethlehem -» Shipbuilding Corp., double-ended and. Wilmington, Del., another wage reduction of 10 per cent was put into effect on Aug. 15. This is the -second reduction this year and the two bring the basic wage from 84 to 64 cents an hour. It was the in- tention of the yard, after this second reduction, to put all their employes, numbering 500, back on full time work. New York plants announced a reduction of about 13 per cent in the wages of ship painters to go into effect Sept. 1. The wage has been 70 cents an hour for ship bottom painting and. 80 cents for interior painting and -yacht work. the new scale is 60 and 70 cerits respec- tively. The 10,000 deadweight ton oil ‘tanker Rosert G. Hopxtns, built for the Tide Water Oil Co., New York, was launched recently at’the Chester yard of the Mer- chant Shipbuilding Corp., Chester, - Pa. The tanker measures 440 feet over aii, has a 58-foot beam and a molded depth of 33 feet. She is capable of carrying 70,000 barrels. of cargo oil in her 18 main oil tankers besides 9550 barrels fuel oil. Her propulsion is five triple expansion engines with an indicated horsepower of 2700, and designed to obtain a speed of 10%4 knots per hour. In addition to the 18 large oil tanks, provision has been made for 60,000 feet of packet freight.