[BITList] Ship sizes - BBC magazine article

[HUGH]

Mike,

I did some research on Clyde shipbuilding for an article a few years ago, and I found one of the things that drove the onset of iron shipbuilding was the limit on the capacity of wooden vessels. There was/is a practical limit on length of about 80 m - above that, the amount of wood to ensure strength becomes ridiculous.  Composite vessels - wood and wrought iron, helped for a while.  There is surely an upper limit for steel, and it may well be found by trial and catastrophic error.  Metallurgical advances are all very well and good, but can be subject to the horse meat syndrome.  In Kincaids, once a length of steel was cut from the bar painted at one end with the ID, the cut length had no ID, so, if provenance was to be lost, there might be a cylinder head stud that, when torqued up to the specified figure, would have a short life indeed. The happiness of its life didn't come into it.  This occurred once that I remember.

Hugh.
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