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In A Shipyard
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IN A SHIPYARD
A shipyard is a vast factory, necessarily close to the water's edge. In most cases it will be found on one bank of a river, wide enough to give plenty of room for launchings. In one part of the water-front are the slipways on which the hulls of ships are built . In another are the fitting-out berths. Round about slipways and berths are the various shops needed for working metal, wood and other materials. They contain many wonderful machines for cutting, planing, bending, punching and drilling steel plates and beams. It would be interestingto watch these at work, but we are here concerned rather with the assembling than the making of parts. The shops, be it noted, are arranged on an order plan, so that the materials and parts shall be passed through them with the least possible amount of carrying. And the works are traversed in all directions by railway tracks, along which parts are transported from shop to shop, or from shop to slipway or berth. The hull of a ship is a steel box of curious shape. It is, in fact, an enourmously strong girder, designed to withstand terrific strains tending to bend it upwards, downwards and sideways. We may divide its parts into three groups: the skeleton or framework; the skin or outer plating; and the internal divisions. The last are made up of horizontal decks and upright bulkheads. The chief member of the framework is the great backbone, the keel and centre girder, running right along theship, and having the stem bar rising from it at the far end and the sternframe attached to the rear end. From this spring at intervals the ribs or frames, in pairs, those of a pair being of exactly the same shape and in line with eachother on opposite sides. The frames are held together by beams, called longitudinals, running lengthwise at different levels, and by horizontal beams carrying the decks. |
