Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/99

 Popular Science Monthly

��All told about fifty separate operations were necessary in putting these parts together ; for each task there was a separate gang of workmen who did nothing else. It was not advisable to build a permanent plant of this size equipped with cables and roof pulleys. Hence progres- sive assembling in the automo- bile sense could not be applied. Au tomobile - assembling practice was re- versed. The boats remained stationary while the men moved along. Otherwise there was no essential diff- erence. So rap- idly were the boats corn-

��Some of the chasers were launched from the shed but others were made inshore and had to be brought to the ways by rail

��pleted by this method that the sheds were soon crowded, and extra keels were laid outside. Some of the boats were launched directly from the shed while others were placed on railroad trucks and carried to the ways. Every vessel was thoroughly tested by British Naval inspectors before it was accepted. The boats were shipped to England on the decks of ocean steamers,

��83

four chasers being carried on one liner. Since the war began, the production has increased from three boats a year to three a day. Five hundred and fifty submarine chasers, eighty feet in length, were com- pleted in less than five hundred and fifty days from the time the con- tract was signed. Perhaps the most surprised wit- ness of this accom- plishment was the British Admiralty itself. And Eng- land, as every- one knows, is the greatest maritime na- tion of the world.

An idea of the tremen- dous amount of detail that had to be looked after in this under- taking may be gained from the following brief list of figures: 550 gas stoves, 2,200 fire extinguishers, 2,200 sailing lights, 550 life boats, 550 searchlights, 25,000 incandes- cent lamps, 974,504 bolts and nuts, 3,850 oil lamps, 13,200 canvas covers, 22,000 storage batteries, 109,450 ft. of brass pipe, 611,000 ft. of manila rope, 33,200 running yards of deck canvas, 16,500 port lights, 1,650 sinks

����iP ljl!il,llllll!l

���When the sheds in which the boats were assembled were filled, additional keels were set up outside. Here some of the boats are shown in an advanced stage, almost r^ady for launching

�� �