For the first time in many years American shipyards are filled practically to capacity with new work, with every indication that this satisfactory condition will continue for many months to come.

According to reports sent to this office from practically every shipyard in the country, there are at the present time over 200 large merchant vessels, totaling about 700,000 gross tons, under construction.

In addition to the merchant work, there are in private shipyards about 59 government vessels under construction, aggregating 168,152 tons displacement, while, in addition to that, there are also building in the government navy yards 12 vessels, aggregating 176,010 tons displacement, making a total of 71 government vessels of 344,162 tons displacement now building in the United States.

The above figures, however, do not include the tonnage of 40 submarines, II of which are building for foreign navies, as the particulars of submarine vessels have not been officially disclosed.

Of the merchant vessels now under construction, 116 of 643,475 gross tons are large sea-going vessels, mostly over 3,000 tons. Thirteen are over 10,000 tons each, 26 range from 7,000 to 10,000 tons, 27 from 5,000 to 7,000 tons, 10 from 4,000 to 5,000 tons, and 42 from 2,000 to 4,000 tons.

The vessels now building may be classified as follows: oil tankers, 48 of 343,851 gross tons; freighters, 53 of 228,041 gross tons; colliers, 9 of 39,855 gross tons; passenger and freight steamers, 6 of 31,728 gross tons.

OUTPUT OF SHIPYARDS IN 1915

During the year 1915 the aggregate tonnage of large sea-going merchant vessels built in the United States was less than has been the case for several years. Taking into account only vessels over 100 gross tons, there were built during the year 129 sea-going merchant vesIn addition sels, aggregating about 173,223 gross tons. to the merchant vessels, 18 government vessels, aggregating 48,146 tons displacement were completed.

Of the sea-going merchant vessels built in 1915, 2 were over 10,000 tons; 4 were between 7,000 and 10,000 tons; 10 were between 5,000 and 7,000 tons; 2 between 4,000 and 5,000 tons and 6 between 3,000 and 4,000 tons.

Classified according to types, the output was as follows: Freighters, 19 of 62,039 gross tons; colliers, 6 of 38,410 gross tons; oil tankers, 5 of 33,238 gross tons; passenger and cargo steamers, 10 of 15,014 gross tons; and oil barges, 9 of 3,963 gross tons.

Although the figures for the output in 1915 are exceptionally low, they reflect the conditions in the American shipyards a year ago rather than at the present time. During 1914, scarcely any contracts of importance for merchant vessels were placed with American shipbuilders, and consequently deliveries of vessels in 1915 have been exceedingly few in number.

Early in 1915, however, the oil companies began to place orders for large oil tankers and these were soon followed by orders from other steamship companies for large freight-carrying steamships. With this impetus, shipyards have rapidly filled up with new work until now, in spite of the fact that almost every ship owner is in the market for new tonnage, it is practically impossible to

place contracts for large merchant vessels on the sea coast for delivery inside of twenty-four months.

In this unprecedented demand for American-built ships, the oil companies have been the leaders, and at the present time approximately one-half of the tonnage of merchant vessels under construction is composed of oil tank steamships.

As shown in Tables I and II, which give the number, tonnage and horsepower of both merchant and government vessels built in 1915, and also the number, tonnage and horsepower of vessels now under construction in the leading shipyards of the United States, it will be seen that the greatest output of merchant tonnage in 1915 was from the Maryland Steel Company, Sparrows Point, Md., with the New York Shipbuilding Company, Camden, N. J., second in the list. Including government vessels, the largest total output for 1915 was from the New York Shipbuilding Company.

At the present time, the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company, Newport News, Va., has in hand the greatest amount of tonnage under construction, with the New York Shipbuilding Company a close second.

TABLE I.-MERCHANT CONSTRUCTION
SHIPS BUILT IN 1915

The output of the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company, Newport News, Va., for 1915 consisted of the two Coast Guard cutters, Ossipee and Tallapoosa, of 900 tons displacement and 1,000 horsepower each, a freighter of 3,063 gross tons and 1,500 horsepower for the New York & Porto Rico Steamship Company and two freighters of 4,387 gross tons and 1,700 horsepower each for the Crowell & Thurlow Steamship Company. The battleship Pennsylvania was launched in 1915 and was about 93 percent complete at the end of the year. The only other government vessel that is under construction at the Newport News yard is the battleship Mississippi. The list of merchant vessels building, however, includes eight oil tankers, six for the Standard Oil Company and one each for the Southern Pacific Company and the Atlantic Refining Company. Four of the Standard Oil ships are of 10,900 gross tons and 3,000 horsepower each. A freighter of 8,000 gross tons is under construction for the Luckenbach Steamship Company, a freight and passenger ship of 6,000 gross tons for the Mallory Line, two freighters of 4,600 gross tons each for the Munson Line, two freighters of 5,900 gross tons each for Crowell & Thurlow Steamship Company, and two freighters of 4,500 tons each for the Southern Pacific Company. Two destroyers and the destroyer tender Melville were devlivered to the United States Navy Department by the New York Shipbuilding Company, of Camden, N. J., during 1915, as well as the battleship Moreno for the Argentine Government. The output of merchant vessels at this yard during the year consisted of a lumber steamer of 5,483 gross tons for the Carpenter-O'Brien Company, the oil tanker Gulfcoast of 5,188 gross tons for the Gulf Refining Company, two colliers of 5,266 gross tons each for the Coastwise Transportation Company, two colliers of 3,289 gross tons each, one for the Harby Steamship Company and the other for the Pocahontas Navigation Company, and the dipper dredge Cascadas, of 1.550 gross tons, for the Isthmian Canal Commission. The machinery of all of the merchant vessels consisted of Scotch boilers and triple expansion reciprocating engines, while the government vessels were engined with either Curtis or Parsons turbines and watertube boilers of either the Babcock & Wilcox or Thornycroft types. The de

* Includes twenty submarines, details of which are withheld. Ten are for Great Britain and one for Spain.

Eight are submarines for the United States Navy, details of which are withheld.

Three are submarines for the United States Navy, details of which are withheld.

$ All are submarines for the United States Navy, details of which are withheld.

stroyer tender Melville was equipped with Parsons turbines and reduction gear.

The work now under construction at the yards of the New York Shipbuilding Company includes two destroyers and the battleships Oklahoma and Idaho for the United States Navy; four oil tankers of 10,250 gross tons each for the Standard Oil Company, an oil tanker of 10,250 gross tons for the Petroleum Transport Company; two oil tankers for the Gulf Refining Company, one of 10,250 gross tons and the other of 5,188 gross tons; two colliers for the Coastwise Transportation Company and two for the Pocahontas Navigation Company, the former being of 4,015 gross tons and 5,266 gross tons respectively, and the latter of 3,289 gross tons each. There are also three colliers, two of 5,266 gross tons and one of 8,500 gross tons, building for the Darrow-Mann Company, and eight car floats of about 750 gross tons each for the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company. Except for the naval vessels, the machinery for these ships consists of Scotch boilers and reciprocating, triple or quadruple expansion engines.

With the exception of the steam yacht While away, of 421 gross tons, equipped with Parsons turbo-reduction gear machinery and White-Forster watertube boilers, built for Mr. Harry Payne Whitney, the whole output of the William Cramp & Sons Ship & Engine Building Company, Philadelphia, Pa., for the year 1915 consisted of government work, including three destroyers and three scows for the Panama Canal. This yard now has under construction five destroyers for the United States navy, and seven oil tankers, five of them being of 7,100 gross tons (two for the Sun Company, two for the Petroleum Transportation Company and one for the Petroleum Oil Company). The other two oil tankers are of 2,800 gross tons for the Mexican Navigation Company. The Cramps yard also has under construction three freighters of 6,300 gross tons each for W. R. Grace & Co.; two passenger and freight vessels of 4,400 gross tons each for the Atlantic Gulf & West Indies Steamship Company, and a car ferry of 2,700 gross tons for the Florida East Coast Railway. The output of the yards of the Harlan & Hollingsworth Corporation, Wilmington, Del., for 1915, consisted of an oil tank steamship of 5,605 gross tons for the Shell Company of California; a twin screw ferryboat of about 1,330 gross tons for the Fort Lee Ferry Company, New York; an oil barge for the Commercial Company, and a small twin screw car ferry for the Bethlehem Steel Company. A large number of boilers were also built for installation in vessels built elsewhere. In common with the other Atlantic coast yards, the work now in hand at this plant consists largely of oil tank steamships, two of 5,605 gross tons being under construction for the Shell Company of California; three of 5,800 gross tons and one of 8,490 gross tons for the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey; one of 5,347 gross tons for the Petroleum Transport; one of 2,750 gross tons and another of 5,605 gross tons for the Vacuum Oil Company. A coastwise freight steamer of 2,010 gross tons is under construction here for the Baltimore & Carolina Steamship Company, a freight and passenger steamship of 4,500 gross tons for the Ocean Steamship Company and another of 750 gross tons for the Wilmington Steamboat Company, as well as a Dieselengined 96-foot motor yacht for Mr. William G. Coxe, president of the Harlan & Hollingsworth Corporation.

In the marine department of the Maryland Steel Company, Sparrows Point, Md., which turned out the largest volume of merchant tonnage in 1915, the output consisted of two colliers of 10,650 gross tons for the Panama Canal, two freight steamers of 3,628 gross tons each for A. H. Bull & Co., a freighter of 6,600 gross tons for the Ameri

can-Hawaiian Steamship Company, and a passenger and freight steamer of 3,800 gross tons for the Munson line. In addition to two oil tankers of 10,000 tons each for the Standard Oil Company, this yard now has under construction two freighters of 5,800 gross tons each for the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company, three freighters of 3,628 gross tons each, two of which are for the Munson line and the other for A. H. Bull & Co., and two freighters of 3,800 gross tons for the Bull Insular line.

The Fore River Shipbuilding Corporation, Quincy, Mass., has had under construction during the past year a large amount of government work, including four destroyers, one of which was delivered in 1915, nine submarines for the United States navy, including the fleet submarine Schley, one submarine for the Spanish government, and ten others for the British navy. The list of merchant vessels building at the Fore River yard includes four tank steamers of 7,500 gross tons and 3,000 horsepower each for the Texas Company, three molasses steamers of 5,000 gross tons and 2,400 horsepower each for the Cuba Distilling Company, and two cargo steamers of 9,500 gross tons and 4,000 horsepower each for the Luckenbach Company. The United States battleship Nevada, which is being built by this company, has already run her trials and is nearly complete.

In Baltimore, the Baltimore Dry Docks & Shipbuilding Company delivered in 1915 to the Huasteca Petroleum Company two oil barges, one of 564 gross tons and the other of 318 gross tons, and to the United States War Department a sea-going suction dredge of 750 gross tons. Four bulk oil tankers of 3,500 gross tons and 1,800 horsepower each are now under construction by this company for a Norwegian firm, the Trans-Atlantic Motor Ship Company. These vessels will each be equipped with three Bolinders engines of 600 brake horsepower each.

The Ellicott Machine Corporation of Baltimore delivered two hopper dredges, of 450 and 650 gross tons respectively, for the United States government, and now has under construction three tugs for the Pennsylvania Railroad of 180 gross tons each. The Spedden Shipbuilding Company, also of Baltimore, built the lighthouse tender Laurel for the United States Lighthouse Department, the sea-going dredge Minquas for the United States Engineers' Department, and a tug for the Maryland Dredging Company in 1915, and now has under construction a new tugboat and is installing boilers in several other vessels.

A new shipyard on the Delaware River, the Chester Shipbuilding Company, Ltd., Chester, Pa., which has taken the site of the old Roach yard, is building two cylindrical tankers for carrying oil of about 5,800 gross tons each, fitted with geared turbine engines of the Westinghouse type designed to develop about 3,000 shaft horsepower.

The output of the Staten Island Shipbuilding Company, West Brighton, N. Y., in 1915, which consisted of six vessels aggregating 3,154 gross tons, included three tugs, a type of vessel in which this company specializes. There are now building at this plant four other tugs, as well as two steel lighters and a grain elevator.

The leading shipyard on the Maine coast, the Bath Iron Works, Bath, Me., specializes in government work and in 1915 delivered to the Navy Department the very successful destroyer Wadsworth, equipped with Parsons turbines and reduction gear and Normand watertube boilers. Three other destroyers are now under construction at this yard, as well as a swift turbine-driven yacht 225 feet long for Mr. D. N. Rouss. In addition to its government work the Bath Iron Works also built in 1915 the torpedo-testing steamer Emblane for the E. W. Bliss Company.

Although progress in the development of Marine Diesel

engines in the United States has been somewhat slow, nevertheless the New London Ship & Engine Company, Groton, Conn., now has under construction 70 Nlesco Diesel engines aggregating 21,780 horsepower. In addition, the Brooklyn Navy Yard is building from designs of this company two 1,600-horsepower, six-cylinder, twocycle, single-acting Diesel engines for the fuel ship Maumee.

WORK ON THE PACIFIC COAST

By far the largest amount of shipbuilding on the Pacific coast is in the hands of the Union Iron Works, San Francisco, Cal. This company built two freighters of about 6,000 gross tons and 2,400 horsepower each, fitted with Curtis turbines, and also launched an oil tanker of 7,445 gross tons fitted with Curtis turbines of 2,600 horsepower in 1915. These, together with an oil barge of 387 gross tons for the Union Oil Company and a motor boat, comprised the output of the yard for the year. They now have under construction six large oil tankers, two being of 8,000 gross tons and four of 7,445 gross tons each. Two of these vessels are for J. W. Van Dyke, one for the Union Oil Company, and one each for the Standard Oil Company of California, the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and the Standard Transportation Company of Delaware. Other work now in hand includes a twin screw turbine-driven passenger and freight steamer of 9,728 gross tons for the Matson Navigation Company and a freighter of 5,900 gross tons fitted with Curtis turbines for the Hind-Rolph Company.

The Seattle Construction & Dry Dock Company, Seattle, Wash., completed the submarine tender Bushnell last year and now has under construction two freight steamers of 3,900 gross tons each for the New York & Cuba Mail Steamship Company and also three submarines and a destroyer for the United States Navy.

Hall Bros. Marine Railway & Shipbuilding Company, Winslow, Wash., built in 1915 the lighthouse tender Fern and the snagboat Swinomish, both of which have been described in recent issues of this magazine.

SHIPBUILDING ON THE GREAT LAKES

The American Shipbuilding Company, which operates. four yards, has under construction at Lorain, Ohio, four bulk freighters of 7,000 gross tons each and one of 6,400 gross tons. Two of these vessels are for the Pittsburgh Steamship Company and one each for M. A. Hanna & Co., the Interlake Steamship Company and Herbert K. Oaks. At Cleveland the American Shipbuilding Company is building two bulk freighters of 2,100 gross tons, one for A. H. Skangaards and the other for Arthur Mathiesen. At Detroit, Mich., this company is building four bulk freighters of 2,100 gross tons each, two of them being for A. O. Lindvig, one for the George Hall Coal Company and one for Erling Lund. Another vessel of 2,100 gross tons is being built at Chicago for Erling Lund. The only vessel built by the American Shipbuilding Company in 1915 was the self-unloading bulk freighter, IV. F. White, of 7,180 gross tons, for the Limestone Transportation Company.

The Great Lakes Engineering Works, Detroit, Mich., delivered ten vessels aggregating 9,603 gross tons in 1915 and now has under construction eleven vessels of 31,347 gross tons. The output in 1915 included three general cargo steamers of 1,414 gross tons each for the Clyde Steamship Company, two bulk freighters, a tug and several scows. The work now in hand includes a bulk freighter of 7,800 gross tons, a self-unloading freighter of 4,810 gross tons, three smaller bulk freighters, a wrecking steamer, two colliers and two cargo steamers of 2,500 gross tons each.

Modern methods, plus expertness and experience, have saved another "hopeless wreck"-this time the steamship Hendonhall, a ship of 4,000 tons gross, which went ashore while bound into the St. Lawrence from Cardiff, November, a year ago. For the better part of nine months the vessel lay on the rocks between Trinity Bay and Point des Monts. Storm after storm added to the gravity of her situation, as well as to the extent of her injuries. Her position was an exposed one and there seemed only the scantiest grounds for hoping for her release.

Various methods for her refloating were proposed, among them that of jacking her clear of the ragged ledge and then building launching ways under her. All of these schemes involved prohibitive outlays, considered in the light of the boat's current value. About the middle of July of the present year the Canadian Salvage Association, licensee of the Yankee Salvage Association, of New York City, took on the job of getting the ship free so she could be towed to Quebec. Mr. W. W. Wotherspoon, the well-known wrecking expert, was in charge of the operations, and on August 26 the Hendonhall was refloated.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of this salvage undertaking was that the damaged craft, in order to get her clear of the rocks, was floated at practically her "builders' light draft:" that is, the vessel was floated at the draft she would have had normally without coal aboard or water in either the boilers or double bottom. Manifestly, this meant giving the ship, and a badly damaged one at that, an exceptionally large measure of buoy

ancy, and this without recourse to extraneous means in the way of pontoons, etc.

The Hendonhall went ashore at high tide. At low water her bow was high and dry, although her stern still floated free. She was filled with water fore and aft, including the engine room. The bottom under No. 2 hold was crushed and opened so badly that the sea, during storms, broke inside of the vessel well nigh as freely as outside. The whole tank was ripped open, and the rent was even much larger than in the case of the Royal George, which the same company successfully floated two years ago. The task was made harder, inasmuch as it was decided to use compressed air, because the Hendonhall had no 'tween-decks, and special facilities were resorted to in order to strengthen the decks above and to deal with the very large cargo hatches on that deck.

The first thing done was to pump out the engine rooms, for otherwise nothing could be done. This work was successfully executed, and the tank tops were repaired there and in the other holds, except in No. 2. This latter compartment was 80 feet long, 48 feet in beam and 27 feet deep. The crux of the operation was to get the water out of this hold. Before this was done the vessel was lightened by removing 500 tons of bunker coal. After the deck was braced compressed air was pumped into the hold at a pressure of six pounds to the square inch. Oil-driven air compressors were used for that purpose and for the first time in Canada. The independent nature of this type of compressor makes it ideal for such service. It may be

Fig. 3.-Patches on Injured Tank Top

The oil-engine compressors are known as "IngersollRogler" Class 'ERO.'" The engine and compressor are mounted on a common base and connected directly on the "straight-line" principle, having a common stroke of 10 inches. The compressor cylinder is double acting, 10 inches in diameter. The oil-engine cylinder is 121⁄2 inches in diameter and operates on the "two-cycle" principle. The rated piston displacement of the air cylinder is 261 cubic feet per minute, and the fuel consumption operating at 100 pounds air-pressure averages 31⁄2 gallons per hour, based on fuel having a thermal value of 20,000 British thermal units per pound. At the low-pressure at which these compressors were run, the fuel consumption was considerably less than this figure.

The ticklish part of the undertaking lay in nicely adjusting the vessel's draft, because she was so caught under hold No. 2 that only a few inches of leeway was allowed in regulating her trim. It was necessary that she should not draw more than 6 feet 9 inches forward and 14 feet aft, lest any acuter angle increase the grip of the rocks even at high tide. Thanks to the skillful manner in which she was handled, the Hendonhall was freed about an hour and a half before high water on a moderate spring tide. At the time of her release her engine room was purposely partly flooded and a quantity of water was carried in No. 4 hold, not only to assist her trim by the stern, but to list her in order to facilitate her clearance.

The ship was kept afloat practically without a bottom, and was taken up the St. Lawrence River to Quebec, a distance of about 250 miles.