A GREAT SHIPBUILDING FIRM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15073, 16 August 1912, Page 6

A GREAT SHIPBUILDING FIRM.

The great shipbuilding yards of Messrs. Harland and Wolff, in Belfast, founded in 1859, hare been enormously expanded during the past five years, there having been added during that period, new .shops "having an area of 165,086 sq. ft. in the shipbuilding yard, and of 222,875 sq. ft. in the machinery works. New tools have been installed to deal with the larger component parts of the structure of the modern behemoths of the ocean as well as to ensure a higher degree of reliability and economy in manufacture. Coincident with these improvements the machine-tools have been rearranged in almost, all the shops. An important turning-point in the career of the firm, says Engineering, was the institution of the White Star Line in 1870, by the Ismaye, who recognised the value of the innovations introduced info the design of ships by "Harland, one of the most originative of naval architects. From that time onward practically every ship built for the line has been constructed at Belfast. The first vessel built was the Oceanic, 400 ft long and of 41ft beam, and notable as the first ship to have passenger accommodation amidships instead of aft where the vibration of the screw was then a source of discomfort to passengers. There followed, in 1875, the Britannic and Germanic, of 5000 tons and 5500 horsepower, and these vessels ran for over a quarter of a century flying the White Star flag with phenomenal success. The Oceanic of 1899 (the second of the name) was of 17.274 tons gross register; the Celtic, built two years later, was of 20,904 tons; the Cedric, built in the following year, was of 21,035 tons; the Baltic, of 1904, of 23,876 tons: the Adriatic, of of 1907, of 24,540 tons; and then a great step was made in 1911, when there were completed .two, .more ships of the Olympic type, with a tonnage- of over 45,000 tons. Then length of the hull in this interval of thirteen years increased from 685 ft.. 9in. to 825 ft. 6in., - and the beam from 68ft. 3in. to 92ft. 6in. At present the firm are building a still larger ship. the gross tonnage of which will probably exceed 50,000 tons.- Other ships besides those named have been built in the interval for the White Star Company, the total tonnage for the , line amounting to 565,000, of an approximate value of £14,000,000. This does not include the vessels for other lines now absorbed in, or allied to, the. White Star fleet. The total output since the founding of the firm of Harland and Wolff in 1859 up to the end of June is 2,148,483 "tons. What the production of chips and machinery represents to Ireland may be, gauged from the fact that- there has been distributed in wages during the fifty-three years that the firm has been in existence 17£ millions sterling.