Marine Log - December 2008 - (Page 56) SHIPBUILDINGHISTORY December 2008 Vol. 113 No. 12 B Y T I M C O LT O N Moore Dry Dock: A yard ahead of its time U.S. Army Corps of Engineers M oore Dry Dock started life as a foundry in the Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco. Robert S. Moore, Joseph A. Moore and John T. Scott bought National Iron Works in 1905 and renamed it Moore & Scott Iron Works. The following year, it was destroyed by fire in the San Francisco earthquake, but they rebuilt it and were back in business later that year. In 1906, however, Bethlehem Steel bought Union Iron Works and became the power shipyard in San Francisco, so Moore & Scott looked for a new opportunity across the bay. They found it in 1909, buying the Boole & Sons shipyard in Oakland. The name of the company was changed to Moore Shipbuilding in 1918, when the Moore brothers bought out Scott and to Moore www.shipbuildinghistory.com Dry Dock in 1924, when Joseph Moore took full control. The original Boole & Sons yard, at the foot of Union Street, on the San Antonio estuary, in Oakland, had been started in 1898 and was innovative in itself, having the first marine railway on the West Coast. The first ship that Moore & Scott built was a tanker for Associated Oil— the company with the famous “Flying A” brand. This ship was called the “Coalinga” and it served for 50 years, an indicator of Moore’s concern for quality. During World War I, Moore & Scott built 45 ships for the U.S. Shipping Board—25 break-bulk cargo ships, eight reefers and 12 tankers. The highlight of this performance must have been a public relations stunt that they pulled in 1919, when they launched six ships within the space of 52 minutes. Moore’s workforce reached a peak of 14,000 during World War I and by the end of the war Boole’s little shipyard had grown into one of the most modern on the West Coast. The years between the wars were quiet, but when the passage of the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 resulted in the U.S. Maritime Commission’s long-range shipbuilding program, Moore was ready. They started off building four C-3 cargo ships for the Maritime Commission, but the Navy also contracted with them for five salvage ships (ASR) and two submarine tenders (AS). The C-3s were followed by 18 C-2s and the ASs were followed by eight LSDs. Then came a string of 65 more C-2s. It is a measure of Moore’s capability that they built those LSDs: only 27 large amphibious-warfare ships were built during WWII— the rest were all conversions—and Moore was selected as lead shipbuilder. Throughout the war, Moore’s management put a lot of effort into productivity improvements, so much so that it is intriguing to speculate as to what they might have achieved if they had survived. Because they really only built one commercial design, they were able to organize their facilities and processes to allow them to build in blocks, unlike most of the emergency shipbuilders. Blocks as big as 60 tons were standard practice for Moore, something that was not seen in many yards for another 30 years. They prefabricated much of the piping so that only final assembly was required on board ship, something that some U.S. yards have still not learned to do. And they were the West Coast’s leader in the use of automatic welding. The last oceangoing ship built by Moore was the C2 Carrier Pigeon, which was delivered on June 30, 1945. In 1949, the West Yard was sold to Oakland Dock and Warehouse Company for $1,200,000 and in 1950, the remainder was sold to Gilmore Steel Company for $1,500,000. ML MARINELOG ISSN 08970491 A Simmons-Boardman Publication 345 Hudson Street, New York, N.Y. 10014 Tel: (212) 620-7200 Fax: (212) 633-1165 Website: http://www.marinelog.com Advertising Sales UNITED STATES New York Sales Office 345 Hudson St., 12th floor New York, NY 10014 Roland Espinosa Sales Director Tel (212) 620-7225 Fax (212) 633-1165 E-mail: respinosa@sbpub.com U.S. GULF COAST Jeff Sutley Tel (212) 620-7233 Fax (212) 633-1165 E-mail: jsutley@sbpub.com WORLDWIDE Donna Edwards, International Sales Manager e-mail: dedwards@sbpub.com Marine Log (UK) Suite K5 & K6, The Priory Syresham Gardens Haywards Heath RH16 3LB UNITED KINGDOM Tel: +44 1444 416368 Fax: +44 1444 458185 Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore Representattive Benn Wood Tel:+44 1444 416908 Fax: +44 1444 458185 E-mail: bw@railjournal.co.uk Korea Young-Seoh Chinn JES Media International 2nd Fl. ANA Bldg. 257-1, Myungil Dong, Kangdong-Gu Seoul 134-070, Korea Tel: +822-481-3411 Fax: +822-481-3414 e-mail: jesmedia@unitel.co.kr CLASSIFIED SALES Diane Okon Classified Advertising Sales 20 South Clark St., Suite 2450 Chicago, IL 60603 Tel: (312) 683-5022 Fax: (312) 683-0131 E-mail: dokon@sbpub-chicago.com USPS 576-910 56 MARINE LOG DECEMBER 2008 www.marinelog.com http://www.shipbuildinghistory.com http://www.marinelog.com http://www.marinelog.com
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