World War I
In 1917 Western Pipe & Steel bought out another local San Francisco company, the Schaw Batcher Pipe Works. Schaw Batcher had frontage on San Francisco Bay and had just received a contract from the U.S. Shipping Board for the building of 22 merchant ships in accordance with the Board's strategic goal of developing a naval auxiliary and merchant marine fleet. With the purchase of Schaw Batcher, Western Pipe & Steel inherited these contracts, thus gaining its first foothold into the shipbuilding industry.
The Shipping Board's contract with WPS called for the building of eighteen vessels of about 5,650 tons each and four larger vessels of 8,800 gross tons. The larger vessels were eventually cancelled in 1918 but all eighteen of the smaller ships were completed, though few were built in time to see service in the war. All of the vessels were of riveted construction, in accordance with the available technology of the period. They had a length of 410 feet (120 m), a beam of 54 feet (16 m), a draft of 24 feet 2 inches (7.37 m), and a displacement of about 8000 tons. They ran on oil fuel and had a speed of 11 knots (20 km/h) and a crew of 39 to 45.
Because of the shortage of water frontage, the company dredged a large rectangular launching basin, and four shipping ways - two per side - were built, which launched ships sideways into the basin. The side launching method was not ideal for ships of this size and some of the vessels suffered hull damage on launch which then had to be repaired. The company was however, to persevere with side launching for the whole of its existence, and eventually these technical problems would be overcome. The channel and the four shipping ways were completed in only three months, and the keel of the company's very first ship, Isanti, was laid on 30 November 1917.
The first eight of the ships were fitted with General Electric steam turbines with a horsepower of 2500, but the plant proved unreliable and was subject to frequent breakdowns. Some of these vessels were lost at sea after foundering due to breakdown, and the rest were scrapped by 1930.
The remaining 10 vessels were fitted with triple expansion engines built by Joshua Hendy, a local San Franciscan company. The 2,800 horsepower (2,100 kW) Joshua Hendy plant proved much more reliable, and many of the vessels powered by this engine went on to have long careers (one of them in fact, the West Camargo, was to enjoy a remarkable service life of almost 60 years, finally being scrapped only in the late 1970s). While all of these vessels were originally built with World War I service in mind, none were lost in that conflict, but of the nine which survived to see service in World War II, more than half were sunk by enemy action.
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