First held in place by bolts and nuts, the plates are finally secured by the rivets, the holes for which have previously been countersunk by machinery, so that there are no protuberances. The rivets go right through, and have double heads: millions of them are used, and every one of them is examined and checked before the work is passed as satisfactory.
Frames of the City of New York, looking forward—July 19, 1887.
At last the hull is closed in, and hundreds of artisans toil upon it, inside and out. At the end of a year, perhaps, the ship is ready for launching, by which time, if she is of the same dimensions as the City of New York or the City of Paris, seven thousand tons of material have been placed in position, one casting alone—the sternpost—weighing twenty-six tons. She is a steel ship, but in addition to the metal, one hundred and twenty thousand cubic feet of timber, brought from all parts of the world, have been used in her. From the cradle in which she lies to the promenade deck she rises to a height of fifty feet or more, and she looks as immovable as a fortress.
Nothing is more wonderful than the launching of such a vessel. Imminent peril seems to attend the operation; she must topple over, thinks the uninitiated observer, or if she succeeds in reaching the water, she must plunge against the opposite bank of the narrow river. But at the appointed time she glides into the water as smoothly as an eel, and once afloat she is held in check by cables attached to the shore. Her engines have got to be put on board, and fully six months more elapse before she is ready for sea. If she is complete within two years of the day the contract for her was awarded, her builders have done well.
Let us now look at the “plant” which is necessary for building such a ship, and to see this in perfection we will visit Fairfield, which divides honors with the great ship-yard of Messrs. James & George Thomson, at Clydebank.
IV.
A wonderful place is Fairfield. When a ship is taken in hand for construction the design for each and every part is proceeded with simultaneously. It is not the keel first, then the frames, then the reverse frames, then the flooring, and so on, as it is in smaller ship-yards. Keel, frames, flooring are put in hand together, and the hull plates are ready before the keel is in position. Simultaneously, too, the sawmill is preparing the planks which are to cover the steel decks: the joiners are at work on the saloon and cabins; the upholsterers are cutting and stitching the brocades, plushes, and silks which are so freely used in modern ocean steamers; the chain-maker is forging the cables, and each department is busying itself with its own share, conscious that what it produces will presently be sought to take its place in the rapidly progressing whole.
How rapid the progress is may be judged from the fact that on August 14, 1885, the steel intended for a North German Lloyd steamer began to enter the yard, and exactly one month later the ship was in frame with keelsons and beams in position, and the plating for the hull, rolled to waterline shape, lying alongside.