SHIPBREAKING IN GREAT BRITAIN
By E.C. Hamner, Jr., Naval Constructor, U.S. Navy
Ship-breaking has been an industry in the British Isles for many years, and so there are plants, having men trained to this work, that can do it quickly, systematically and economically. During the war, every old vessel that could be got into sea-going condition was put into active service. No vessels, naval or commercial, were broken during that period. When the war was over, nearly all countries possessed large quantities of tonnage, much of which soon became unprofitable to operate. Breaking of old ships, especially obsolete Naval vessels, became a large industry, and many plants were established in the British Isles to carry on this work. When scrap iron was in demand this was a lucrative business, but as time went on and the scrap market weakened, it required the greatest economy in breaking to make it pay. Today Germany, on account of cheap labor, and the demand there for scrap is about the only country that can break ships profitably; consequently, Great Britain has found it necessary to dispose of large quantities of Naval tonnage to German Ship Breaking firms as no market was available at home.
It is rather a pitiful sight to go to the knackers yard and, see great battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and other vessels that served so valiantly in the war, torn to pieces and stripped in this ruthless manner. These once proud monarchs of the seas, in the process of breaking, look, for all the world, like masses of twisted and broken wreckage after some great storm has passed. The blast that breaks them up, however, will later mould them into useful articles which will go to the four corners of the earth to help rehabilitate the desolation wrought by war.
The breaking plants must have deep water where ships can be moored, or else quay walls or piers to tie them up to during the first part of the breaking. If moored in deep water, barges and derricks are necessary to handle the scrap from the ship to the shore, but where piers or quay walls are available this handling of weights is done, to a large extent, by locomotive cranes. When a ship comes to the plant to be broken, she is laid alongside of the pier or quay wall and the non-ferrous metal is removed, as far as possible, before the real breaking begins. Parts of the decks are cut out so that engine rooms, dynamo rooms, etc., may be more accessible. All auxiliary machinery that can possibly be sold, such as motors, dynamos, winches and pumps, instead of being broken to scrap, are carefully handled and kept intact; they are then removed to the storehouses, carefully cleaned and stored. All furniture from staterooms, cabins, and offices, that may be saleable, is also carefully removed, cleaned, and polished, to enhance its value, and stored for sale. The other non-ferrous metal, including piping, wiring, fittings, etc., is removed and sent to the sorting sheds.
The sorting sheds are usually temporary structures with dirt floors, and are equipped and fitted to break up non-ferrous metals to crucible sizes. In one other large plant, these sheds, which are conveniently located to the main piers where the non-ferrous metal is taken from the vessel, are equipped with certain tools to facilitate the breaking of the scrap. Along one side of the building runs a long work bench fitted with vices, at which boys and unskilled men remove bolts and nuts from flanges, and generally disassemble non-ferrous metal so that it can be cut into sizes by shears. Down the center of the shop there are three or four medium sized shears, and several smaller ones, for cutting the metal to crucible sizes. There are also installed tumbling barrels to clean paint and dirt from the sheared metal. All of these machines are driven by shafting which is usually driven by a motor that has been salved from one of the vessels. On the other side of the building are a series of bins, in which the sorted metal is stored; bins for the various kinds of metal, such as copper, yellow metal, gun metal, babbit and lead. Lead is usually melted into pigs, but no other kind of metal is melted. The larger nonferrous castings are brought outside of these buildings and heated either by building a wood fire around them, if they are very large, or put into improvised furnaces which burn wood. The wood used is that salved from decks and ceilings which is only good for use as firewood. After the metal is heated it is broken up by a drop weight which is handled by one of the cranes. A large piece of armor plate is used for the anvil; the drop weight usually consists of a smaller piece of armor plate, fitted with a ring bolt for hoisting, and operated by a trip hook. These drop weights are also used for crushing large copper pipes, or other bulky pieces of metal, so that they can be cut to crucible size by the shears. All metal that is saturated with oil is placed in the improvised furnaces to burn off the oil.
Non-ferrous metal is handled expeditiously by this method and, after sufficient quantities are on hand, it is either shipped in bulk to some foundry in Great Britain or barreled for foreign shipment.
In removing non-ferrous metal from vessels, care must be exercised to avoid any piping or valves being removed that will open the vessel to the sea, for a large vessel sunk alongside of a pier is not always economically raised. I have seen one large battleship that had suffered from such a mishap.
After the bulk of the non-ferrous metal has been removed, the real breaking of the ship proper is begun. The ship is stripped of metal from the top downwards. It is the practice to first remove the turret tops, and then lift out the guns and turret machinery. In breaking the turrets a cut is made down the face of the turret about three or four inches wide, the bolts removed, and the turret plates can then be knocked down without removing each locking key. After the turrets have been dismantled the funnels, bridges, and superstructures, are broken; the tripod masts being left as long as possible for use as derricks in lifting heavy weights. After the top hamper, superstructure, and turrets, above the main deck, have been removed, the ship is cut down deck by deck, the wood being saved for lumber, or for heating castings as described above, or sold for firewood. All heavy plating is cut to furnace size by acetylene burners, either aboard ship or on the quay walls or piers abreast the ship. The framing and plating back of armor is cut by burners and the armor allowed to fall inboard on deck; from there it is handled by the crane and later cut by burners to furnace size. Plate of 20 pounds and under is taken out in as large pieces as the cranes can handle, and later cut to size by shears, as this is more economical than burning it. The ship is cut down as far as is considered safe, and then towed to a shelving beach and beached at high tide, which leaves her entirely exposed at low tide. By this time so much weight has been removed that the draft of the ship is very small. On this shelving beach the breaking process continues until the whole vessel is cut up.
Oxy-acetylene is used entirely for cutting all structural parts of the ship; the heavy plating and armor plate are cut to furnace sizes and shipped in bulk by ships to the steel foundries. The lighter plate is usually sold to firms who straighten it first, and then stamp it into washers, wrenches, spanners or other small tools.
Most plants use portable metal bins to transport the metal after it has been cut to furnace size. These bins are made from about ten pound plate. They are about seven feet long and four-and-a-half feet wide; on three sides they have side plating to the height of about two-and-a-half feet. In the side plating are holes so that cranes can pick them up with sling hooks and transport them to any desired place. The bins are placed on the ship and the metal, after being cut, is put into them; when the bins are lifted from the ship they are weighed by a clock scale, weighing up to ten tons. This clock scale is used on the crane hook so that the bin and contents are weighed when they are picked up. The weight is marked on the bin with chalk and, as each bin is numbered and the tare of it known, the weight of the contents can be recorded. When a carrier ship is ready, the cranes pick up the bins and dump the contents directly into the ship's hold, so that a great amount of handling of heavy metal is avoided. These bins are also used to transport non-ferrous metal to the sorting shops and, in general, they serve the same purpose that portable platforms do in shops and storehouses where lifting trucks are available.
The breaking gang aboard a battleship consists of about sixty to seventy men, under a foreman who has direct charge of all work on that particular ship. About eight men are employed burning metal, with eight boys as helpers to learn the trade; about four riggers are necessary; the remainder of the gang are unskilled laborers. The work is crude and rapid. No care is taken except with articles or machinery that can be sold as such. A careful inspection is made, however, to see that all non-ferrous fittings, bolts, nuts and washers, are removed from the metal before it goes into the handling bins. Ship-breaking firms in the British Isles generally consider that sixty or seventy men to a ship is the most economical number that can be used efficiently. With this number of men a battleship can be completely broken in about sixteen months. In Germany, where labor is at present cheap and the demand for scrap great, a maximum of about two hundred men are employed to each battleship, and the breaking time is reduced to nine or ten months.