SPECIAL QUICK ATTACHING AUTO HANDLING GEAR Lowers Handling Cost (Continued from Page 51) The American-Hawaiian provides a large trailer with crate like side for receiving small shipments from street trucks. This keeps a large number of trucks off the pier and reduces congestion. These trailers are hauled by electric tractors to the place on the dock designated for the cargo. Cargo discharged to the lower deck is loaded on trailers or four-wheel trucks and hauled to place of rest on the pier by hand or tractor, de- pending on the length of haul. On the upper deck, the canned goods and dried fruit are loaded on trucks and hauled by hand to a sorting area which is surrounded by enough skid platforms to take care of the various marks. There the truck is hauled to the proper skid and the cases trans- ferred. When the skids are fully loaded, they are taken to a designated section of the pier by electric lift trucks. Flour and beans are loaded on a staging and are “humped” to the skids placed by the staging. Five thousand five hundred skids are used on the upper deck of the dock. These are forty inches by sixty inches, have an underneath clearance of eleven inches and a distance between legs of 26 inches. The skids are handled by storage battery lift trucks equipped with lead batteries. Own- ership of these trucks is divided between the American - Hawaiian and the Jarka Corp. ELECTRIC’ HOIST USED FOR LOWERING SKIDS TO TRUCKS The trucks are supple- mented by fifteen hand lift trucks which are used for short hauls. Spare batteries are pro- vided. A charging panel is used for charging the batteries. In the fall, when the inward ton- nage is the heaviest, tiering is neces- sary. This is accomplished in the case of hay and some other com- modities by rigging a block and tackle to the beams of the upper deck of the pier. The tackle is operated with one of the tractors. Deliveries from the upper deck are made to lighters and to street trucks. The lighters are loaded by the steve- dores. The lift trucks carry the skids to the doorway, where a bridle type of sling of special design is attached This sling has two pieces of hay - angle iron which are placed under the skid legs or runners. An electric dock winch, working with a boom on the dock, lowers the skid to the lighter. To save the men carrying packages a long distance, an lec. trical lift truck is lowered to the lighter for use in carrying the skids to the pile. Delivery to the street trucks from the upper deck is handled by the American-Hawaiian. The loaded skids are carried to the head of the pier and are placed under a _ three-ton capacity electric hoist. A_ bridle jis used of the same design used in lowering skids to lighters. When the load is lifted clear, the hoist moves over a hatchway in the floor of the dock and lowers the skid to a plat- form at which the street trucks are SIDE OF PIER SHOWING BOOMS ON UPPER DECK placed for loading. There are 10 hatchways served by four electric hoists. The pier is provided with several chutes from the upper deck bat these are used only to supplement the system described above because the above system is more effective than the chute system. Unnecessary handling is avoided by handling the cargo on skids. The cargo is delivered not only in good condition but at a reasonable cost to the steamship company. Novel Rivera Tanker Launched HE first rivetless cargo vessel, i a 2500-barrel oil tanker, has just been completed in the yards of the Charleston Dry Dock & Machine Co., Charleston, S. C., and was launched Feb. 14. Her service test will take place about Feb. 28, after which the tanker will go into service for the Texas Oil Co. This vessel was constructed entirely by the arc-welding method and has not a rivet, bolt or structural angle anywhere in its structure. The arc 60 welding was done under a new sys- tem of dove-tailed, lock-notched plates, developed by Richard F. Smith, a young ship designer and inventor. One acetylene cutting torch and one Gen- eral Electric are welding machine were employed. Only nine workmen were required and 8000 pounds of welding wire were used as compared to 85,000 pounds of rivets which would have been necessary had the construction been by the riveting method. MARINE REVIEW—March, 1930 The preliminary estimate of Mr. Smith was that a saving of 20 per cent in weight and of 25 per cent in the cost of construction would be realized, as compared to riveted vessels. These figures were verified in the actual work, and in addition the vessel was found to have greater cargo capacity because of the absence of rivets, bolts and angles. The ship is 120 feet long and 28 feet wide, and has a 10-foot draft. The United States navy department as well as 4