Topic starter
27/03/2009 4:05 am
Greetings From New Orleans ,
Just one of the many " perks " that I enjoy while traveling the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge is to observe the progress of the construction of sea going ships at the Avondale Shipyard . First of all , for one reason or another the Avondale Shipyard no longer builds commercial sea going vessels like tankers and bulkers but now only U.S. military vessels . First of all , I am by no means a naval architect but I do know what I personally see at the Avondale Shipyard and its by no means on a small scale . Now what I find facinating is that the modern day ships of today are no longer being built by laying a keel first and then building upwards from it , but rather these ships are now being built in separate sections and then at the appropriate time these separate sections are then literally placed and secured together . I am not sure if the Str.'s Mississippi Queen and the American Queen were built in this fashion and possibly some one that does know may contribute to this discussion . Regardless , hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I did watching these ships being built .
Smooth Sailing !
Ted Davisson
27/03/2009 1:23 pm
Seems to me that I've read that the sectional construction technique became common during WWII when we were trying to turn out as many hullls as possible in the shortest time. I'm sure that Capt. Bates can tell us in more detail.
27/03/2009 9:22 pm
Kaiser Coffins
The Kiaser shipyards are the ones I have most often heard given credit for SECTIONAL ship building. The idea fell into disfavor when their ships started to break apart. It was later found that the steel making process was the problem, not the sectional idea. Kaiser had also made the steel.
My ex brother-in-law was a marine draftmans and worked on several of these projects. Many stories of mismatched sections and some of the dangerous ways the problems were worked out.
The use of computers has help greatly in this area.
27/03/2009 9:53 pm
Shipyard Sundays
When we are in the Avondale yard in the early '70's, the place would shut down on Sundays, so that gave us a day off, too. A few of us, and there were only a very few of us, would get a bottle of Boone Country, apiece, and roam over the shipyard sticking our heads in new, undiscovered places that needed exploration.
We approached a Navy DE about ready for launch, and with but one civilian guard around, we easily persuaded him to give us a look-see aboard the ship. His guided tour took us into one certain room that we soon found out was highly classified when the supervisor of the lonesome protector of the Navy's property caught us as we were crossing the gang plank back to solid earth. We did some mighty persuasive talking and were allowed to return to the DELTA QUEEN, but the guard didn't fare so well as I later found out when Big Cap gave me a talking-to, as only he could.
28/03/2009 1:18 am
Was it a bottle of Boone's Farm Apple Wine, Shipyard? And yes, that particular vintage holds a special place in my heart, August 7th, 1971, and special doesn't mean "happy"...to this day I can't even LOOK at the lable...that and tequila, which is another story...