Chapter 277: Becoming Bigger and Stronger (Third update, please subscribe)
After returning to Nanhua from Dahua Steel Company, Zhu Xianhai happened to catch up with the new ship launching ceremony of Nanhua Shipyard. He went directly to the shipyard without an invitation.
"When a dragon enters the water, everything goes smoothly."
With these words in his mouth, Zhu Xianhai threw the "Victory Wine" in his hand and hit the bow of the "Zhurong". As the gate of the dock, which had already been filled with water, opened, the large cargo ship was slowly towed out of the dock by a tugboat amid scattered cheers.
Compared to the huge cargo ship, the tugboat is not big, but it is very powerful. It easily towed the cargo ship with a displacement of up to 6,000 tons out of the dock.
At the same time, the workers participating in the launching ceremony applauded and cheered. The "Zhurong" is the largest merchant ship built by the Nanhua Shipyard.
This ship is a mineral transport ship designed by Nanhua Shipyard.
This bulk carrier was ordered by South China Shipping Company, mainly used to transport coal and other materials between Cape Colony and South China. The British Cape Colony was the most important source of coal for South China, which was a last resort. After all, Cape Colony was the nearest source of high-quality bituminous coal. As for other coal mines, they were either too far away or the coal quality was poor, and the coal mines in South China... had limited output!
"Sir, in the past, our ore carriers could only transport 2,000 to 3,000 tons of coal at a time, but now the Zhurong can transport 6,000 tons of coal at a time, doubling its capacity. It uses a 1,000-horsepower triple-expansion steam engine, and its coal consumption is about the same as that of the old ship. Even without sails, it can reach a speed of 10 knots. If both the engine and the sail are used, the speed can reach 14 knots."
Unlike when he first came to Nanhua, Liu Weier can now speak fluent Chinese and write beautiful Chinese. As the first naturalized immigrant in the shipyard, Liu Weier has now become the chief engineer of the shipyard. In fact, he is a very good chief designer. He not only supervises the construction of half of the ships in the shipyard, but also teaches in the affiliated school and trains hundreds of junior technicians and apprentices.
Of course, he shared the same views with Zhu Xianhai in many aspects, such as the iron-hulled merchant ships. It was under his promotion that Nanhua had long eliminated the construction of wooden-hulled ships.
"Coal is one of the largest commodities transported by shipping companies now. Companies have been seeking to reduce transportation costs, and in order to reduce costs, they must build larger ships..."
Turning to look at Zhu Xianhai, Li Wei said.
"So we designed this coal carrier. It was designed according to the company's requirements. Yes, this is also the first large ship designed completely independently by Nanhua Shipyard. In the past, the merchant ships we built always borrowed from the British prototype ships to a certain extent, and at most made some improvements to adapt to the offshore environment. But this one is different. It is completely designed and manufactured by us. In order to facilitate the loading and unloading of coal with a bucket, we deliberately strengthened the structure of its bottom to facilitate the rapid loading and unloading of the steam shovel."
The coal carriers of this era had just gotten rid of the era of manual loading and unloading. Steam shovels were used to load and unload coal at special transport docks, but this required special coal carriers. The biggest advantage of coal carriers was that they could load and unload quickly. Of course, they also had to be able to withstand rough handling. It was normal to reinforce the bottom of the ship.
“You can build it bigger.”
Looking at the cargo ship that had already been launched, Zhu Xianhai smiled.
"Chief Engineer Li, according to the company's calculations, in the next three years, Nanhua's demand for coal will exceed 4 million tons, and the local supply can only reach 2.5 million tons at most. There is still a gap of 1.5 to 2 million tons. This gap can only be filled through imports. Whether it is imported from Cape Town or other places, coal ships are needed. 6,000 tons is still too little. Can you consider 10,000 tons?"
"Tens of thousands of tons!"
Li Wei opened his eyes wide and said.
"Is it a 10,000-ton ore-carrying ship? It seems that there is no ore-carrying ship that big in the world."
"Just because there is none now doesn't mean there is no market demand for it. Take us for example, the demand for it is very strong. It's not just coal, there will be iron ore, timber and other resources that need to be imported in the future. Therefore, we have a great demand for large ships!"
Zhu Xianhai said, pointing to an immigration ship being built in another dock.
"There are also immigration ships. Small ships of several thousand tons are more flexible, but large ships can carry more people. Such immigration ships must be at least 10,000 tons. In a word, the bigger the ships, the better."
If possible, we would not rule out building a ship like the Great Eastern. Of course, the shipyard's current technical capabilities are not up to that goal. It seems that there has been rapid progress in the past few years, but in fact it has just been "practice", training a group of skilled shipbuilding workers. This is the biggest progress of the shipyard in the past few years.
"This, my lord, is this the company's requirement?"
Liang Mingwei interrupted and asked. In the past few years, he has been focusing on warship construction, from the "Fubo" of more than 1,000 tons to the "Shanxi" of 2,800 tons. The British sanctions have brought the spring of warship construction to the Nanhua Shipyard. Now the lord's decision is undoubtedly the spring of the entire shipyard!
“It’s not a requirement of the company, but a necessity of development!”
Looking at the "Shanxi" being built in the shipyard, Zhu Xianhai said.
"Only by building large merchant ships can we accumulate experience in building large ships, and then have the opportunity to build warships with larger tonnage. You know, a few years ago, the European powers had already started building battleships of tens of thousands of tons, and we are just getting started now!"
Building merchant ships is also for training!
Of course, it was also because of demand. After returning from the shipyard, Zhu Xianhai's orders for two types of merchant ships soon arrived at the shipyard - a total of 20 ships, and the engineering pressure was very high. The requirements for these two types of merchant ships were to have a displacement of more than 10,000 tons, the speed requirement for the ore carrier was 10 knots, and the immigration ship was 16 knots. This speed was even far higher than the speed of European warships of the same period. Fortunately, after years of improvement and research and development, Nanhua's triple expansion steam engine technology has become extremely mature and can provide a powerful engine. Otherwise, the speed requirement alone would have ruined this plan.
However, in addition to the unprecedented order for twenty 10,000-ton merchant ships, there is also a highly confidential order requiring the shipyard to design a main combat ship with a displacement of approximately 7,000 tons.
The moment he received these orders, Liang Mingwei immediately felt that perhaps a new era of shipbuilding industry was about to come.
(End of this chapter)
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