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Wooden Ship Building—Typical Methods of Construction the gods of war have decreed must be revived. For the ranks of “the little cargo boats, that sail the wet seas roun’”’ are thinning fast as a result of the continual depredations of the slinking submarine. The dingy tramps of the ocean lanes, England’s and America’s pride, are threatened, and unlike the situation described by Kipling in 1894, the man-o’-war has found himself unable “to up an’ fight for them” with any degree of success. Therefore, while a method of exterminating the German pest is being evolved, and long after the last one has been swept from the seas, ship builders everywhere will be obliged to proceed at top speed to provide vessels sorely needed by the world’s commerce. And for a decade at least, the steel ship building capacity of the W “ite eo ship building is a lost art that world will be insufficient to meet the demand,: with the result that the builders of wooden cargo carriers are assured of a long period of prosperity and profitable activity. No one with sense contends that the wooden ship is the equal of its steel counterpart. But By H. Cole Estep we are now face-to-face with a great national emergency. The wooden vessel, therefore, finds that its usefulness for the time being is not measured by intrinsic merit. Also, the condi- tions surrounding the world’s carrying trade are such that the future of the wooden vessel is secure for the next 10 or 20 years regardless of whether the government’s ambitious program is carried through. Those people who depend on the newspapers for their information think that the plan to build wooden ships for the transatlantic trade is a brand new idea. Well informed shipping men, however, know that wooden ship building has been undergoing steady expansion for the past year and a half and that American wooden ship builders today have orders for over 150 vessels for private owners. As a result of this activity, there has grown up a demand for information of a practical character on wooden ship building, which it will be the purpose of the series of articles of which this is the first to supply. Numerous other articles, profusely illustrated and going into details, will follow this introductory installment. OW large may wooden vessels be built? This is one of the first questions that arises in considering the construction of wooden cargo car- riers, “for the “economies of large units are thoroughly appreciated throughout the maritime world. In the heyday of the wooden ship, in England and Europe about 1850, very few vessels larger than 2,000 tons were built, and practically none were over 40 feet beam. Their length was usually about 200 feet. Their tonnage was limited by the fact that the naturally crooked oak timbers used for the frame grew only in lim- ited . sizes. -[ he same limitations in regard timbers, keels, existed to long such as keelsons, strakes, clamps, shelves and planks, which had to be built up and well scarfed, locked, hooked and bolted to make up for lack of large size mate- rial. It remained for: the Pacific coast of the United largest sizes, to finally demonstrate that wooden vessels of 3,000 to 3,500 or even 4,000 tons deadweight capacity are practicable, although there is a difference of opinion among architects as to the extent to which the largest hulls should be reinforced with steel. At the present time, two wooden vessels, 308 feet long, 285 feet keel, with a deadweight capacity of 4,300 tons, not including 2,500 barrels of oil fuel for diesel engines, are under construction on the north Pacific coast. These vessels have been given the highest rating, it is stated, by both American and British classifica- tion societies. Conservative opinion, however, leans to the view that ves- sels without steel reinforcement should not be built over 260 or 270 feet in length. As far as the supply of lumber for wooden ship construction is concerned, there is little to fear. The estimated total supply of merchantable timber in the United States is placed at the stupendous figure of 2,500,000,000,000 feet board measure—over two-thou- sand billion feet. Canada, in addition, has 80,000,000,000 feet. Russia has even more timber reserves than the United States. A large portion of the ship building fimber im this .country is in the Pacific northwest, the state of Wash- - ington alone hav- ing over 11,700 square miles of standing timber, exclusive of na- tional forest re- serves; .In- the south, along the gulf and southern Atlantic coasts, = States with its there are almost boundless supply FIG. 1-LAUNCHING A LARGE WOODEN STEAMER AT A SHIP YARD NEAR equally important of timbers, of the NEW ORLEANS timber reserves, 195