Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

THE EQUIPMENT OF A MODERN SHIPYARD. 79 SHIPPING THE MACHINERY, FITTING OUT, AND TRIAL TRIP OF A NEW SHIP. I .Fig. 22.—IN THE TUNNEL SHAFT OF A BIG LINER. Generally speaking, a vessel when launched is merely a shell, without engines and boilers on board. These have to be shipped, the masts and funnels placed in position, and much of the deck and interior work completed, before the ship is ready to proceed on her trial trip. If the vessel is intended to carry passengers, there is usually a large amount of joiner-work still to be done in the public rooms and state rooms when the vessel is put into the water. The completion of a liner may occupy twelve months after her launch, while the builders of a battleship are frequently engaged for an even longer period in fitting the armour, guns, and machinery ere the vessel commences her preliminary sea trials. Of course, th© construction of the propelling machinery has proceeded at the engine works simultaneously with the building of the hull in the shipyard, and the engines and boilers are usually sufficiently far advanced to enable a start to be made with lifting them on board within a short $h’PPin£ the time of the launch. The Machiner-V- propeller or propellers, the propeller shafting, and other subsidiary parts of the machinery, are frequently fitted before the vessel is put into the water, and as a rule the engines have been erected in the shop and the boilers are prac- tically finished before the vessel is taken along- side the engine works. Openings are left by the builders in the decks, etc., to facilitate the operation of shipping the machinery, and in a very short time the main engines and boilers are oil board, and the vessel returns to the shipbuilding yard to complete her equipment. A number of men are still employed in the engine and boiler rooms completing pipe con- nections, etc. ; but as a rule when the vessel returns to the shipyard the shipbuilders have more work to complete than the. engine- builders. Fig. 23.—PROPELLER SHAFT IN DYNAMO ROOM OF A SHIP; The scene on board a large vessel during the final fitting-out before being handed over to her owners is an interest- . . Fitting-out. mg one, and a visitor unaccus- tomed. to such work often wonders how order is introduced into what appears to him chaos.