BoatBanter.com - View Single Post - 1978 - More memories of working in a shipyard #0

Kilgore Trout[_2_]

In article , says...

On Thu, 4 May 2017 21:16:40 -0400, Kilgore Trout
wrote:

Here are scanned pages from a pamphlet that was originally published as a magazine article about
the Sun Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company.

So I was present at several launches, not on the VIP platform but
underneath the hull. offering a prayer that the ship would start
moving as soon as the chocks were knocked out. There were, of course,
hydraulic rams to give it a push if necessary.

When I started in the shipyard in '73, I worked in the Stagebuilders (66 department, shipwright
carpenters), who actually performed the launch. I've helped knock out the supports that held the
ship up, and was on the shipway when it started down.

At least one shipyard would not believe that the coefficient of
friction would be so much better than with the old materials so there
were some exciting launches.

Yeah, we had one get stuck once for the exact same reason.

The Tyne is not wide so the ship had to be turned as soon as it was in
the water, done with suitably positioned drag chains. At one launch,
the ship was going a bit quickly and did not turn quickly enough and
hit the boiler house of British Paints on the other side of the river
- the chairman of British Paints was on the VIP launch platform but
fortunately he could not see his boiler house!

Sun used a steel cable to turn the ship, and one launch, that cable snapped. The ship then went
sightseeing in New Jersey. :-)

--
Al McCann
albert(dot)mccann(at)outlook(dot)com