The United States Navy, United States Coast Guard, and United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) use a hull classification symbol to identify their ships by type and by individual ship within a type. The system is analogous to the pennant number system that the Royal Navy and other European and Commonwealth navies use.
Liberty ships were a class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Although British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost construction. Mass-produced on an unprecedented scale, the Liberty ship came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output.
The third USS Charleston (C-22/CA-19) was a United States Navy St. Louis-class protected cruiser. She was launched 23 January 1904 by Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co., Newport News, Virginia, sponsored by Miss Helen Whaley Rhett, and commissioned on 17 October 1905, Captain Cameron McRae Winslow in command. She was reclassified CA-19 on 17 July 1920.
The first USS South Dakota (ACR-9/CA-9), also referred to "Armored Cruiser No. 9", and later renamed Huron, was a United States Navy Pennsylvania-class armored cruiser.
Mulberry harbours were two temporary portable harbours developed by the British Admiralty and War Office during the Second World War to facilitate the rapid offloading of cargo onto beaches during the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. Designed in 1942 and then built in under a year in great secrecy, within hours of the Allies successfully creating beachheads following D-Day, sections of the two prefabricated harbours and old ships, to be sunk to create breakwaters, were being towed across the English Channel from southern England and placed in position off Omaha Beach and Gold Beach.
A hulk is a ship that is afloat, but incapable of going to sea. Hulk may be used to describe a ship that has been launched but not completed, an abandoned wreck or shell, or to refer to an old ship that has had its rigging or internal equipment removed, retaining only its buoyant qualities. The word hulk also may be used as a verb: a ship is "hulked" to convert it to a hulk. The verb was also applied to crews of Royal Navy ships in dock, who were sent to the receiving ship for accommodation, or "hulked". Hulks have a variety of uses such as housing, prisons, salvage pontoons, gambling sites, naval training, or cargo storage.
Concrete ships are built primarily with ferrocement hulls, reinforced with steel bars. This contrasts against more traditional materials, such as pure steel or wood. The advantage of ferrocement construction is that materials are cheap and readily available, while the disadvantages are that construction labor costs are high, as are operating costs. During the late 19th century, there were concrete river barges in Europe, and during both World War I and World War II, steel shortages led the US military to order the construction of small fleets of ocean-going concrete ships, the largest of which was the SS Selma. United States Maritime Administration (MARAD) designation for concrete ships-barges was Type B ship. Few concrete ships were completed in time to see wartime service during World War I, but during 1944 and 1945, concrete ships and barges were used to support U.S. and British invasions in Europe and the Pacific. Since the late 1930s, there have also been ferrocement pleasure boats.
A breakwater is a permanent structure constructed at a coastal area to protect against tides, currents, waves, and storm surges. Breakwaters have been built since Antiquity to protect anchorages, helping isolate vessels from marine hazards such as wind-driven waves. A breakwater, also known in some contexts as a jetty or a Mole, may be connected to land or freestanding, and may contain a walkway or road for vehicle access.
USS Quartz (IX-150), a Trefoil-class concrete barge designated an unclassified miscellaneous vessel, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for quartz or silicon dioxide (SiO2) a hard, vitreous mineral occurring in many varieties and comprising 12% of the Earth's crust. Her keel was laid down as MC hull 1330 by Barrett and Hilp, Belair Shipyard, San Francisco, California (T. B7.D1). She was launched on 4 December 1943, and accepted by the Navy and placed in service on 13 April 1944.
A barracks ship or barracks barge or berthing barge, or in civilian use accommodation vessel or accommodation ship, is a ship or a non-self-propelled barge containing a superstructure of a type suitable for use as a temporary barracks for sailors or other military personnel. A barracks ship, a military form of a dormitory ship, may also be used as a receiving unit for sailors who need temporary residence prior to being assigned to their ship. The United States Navy used to call them Yard Repair Berthing and Messing with designations YRBM and YRBM(L) and now classes them as either Auxiliary Personnel Barracks (APB) or Auxiliary Personnel Lighter (aka barge) (APL).
Edward Giles Stone was an Australian engineer prominent in many innovative, often daringly spectacular, aspects of early reinforced concrete constructions in Australia. He was also involved in cement manufacture. He was briefly a pioneer in prefab housing but that industry was destined to use timber, not concrete plates.
For more than 35 years, from 1923 to 1958, the Union steamship Cardena sailed the British Columbia Coast, carrying passengers, groceries, dry goods, industrial cargo, mail and sundry other supplies to the 200 or so mining, logging and fishing communities that once dotted the province's coastline during the early years of the 20th century. On her return voyage, at the peak of the summer fishing season, Cardena routinely carried thousands of cases of canned salmon to the railheads at Prince Rupert and Vancouver for shipment across Canada and around the world. And so it went for the better part of half a century; a regular and reliable marine service that made Cardena a coastal institution, remembered with affection and regard by the countless men, women and children who inhabited those tiny outports in a bygone era.
SS Peralta is a concrete floating breakwater in Powell River in British Columbia. She was built as a concrete oil tanker by the San Francisco Shipbuilding Company, and was launched in February 1921. The ship is 128 m long, with a beam of 15.4 m and has a volume of 6,144 GRT. Her sister ship is SS Palo Alto. She was acquired in 1924 and converted into a sardine cannery in Alaska. After spending 24 years in this role the ship was moored off Antioch, California. She was bought by Macmillan Bloedel in 1958 and moored as part of a giant floating breakwater in Powell River to protect the company's log storage pond. She is the oldest and largest American-built concrete ship still afloat.
The Type B ship is a United States Maritime Administration (MARAD) designation for World War II barges. Barges are very low cost to build, operate and move. Barges were needed to move large bulky cargo. A tug boat, some classed as Type V ships, could move a barge, then depart and move on to the next task. That meant the barge did not have to be rushed to be unloaded or loaded. Toward the end of World War 2, some ships that had not been completed in time for the war were converted to barges. US Navy barges are given the prefix: YWN or YW. Due to shortage of steel during World War II, concrete ship constructors were given contracts to build concrete barges, with ferrocement and given the prefix YO, YOG, YOGN. Built in 1944 and 1945, some were named after elements.
