Design and Construction
The West ships were cargo ships of similar size and design built by several shipyards on the West Coast of the United States for the United States Shipping Board for emergency use during World War I. Some 40 West ships were built by Los Angeles Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company of Los Angeles, all given names that began with the word West. West Conob (Los Angeles Shipbuilding yard number 14) was completed in May 1919.
West Conob was 5,899 gross register tons (GRT), and was 410 feet 1 inch (124.99 m) long (between perpendiculars) and 54 feet 6 inches (16.61 m) abeam. She had a steel hull and a deadweight tonnage of 8,600 DWT. Sources do not give West Conob's other hull characteristics, but West Grama, a sister ship also built at Los Angeles Shipbuilding had a displacement of 12,225 t with a mean draft of 24 feet 2 inches (7.37 m), and a hold 29 feet 9 inches (9.07 m) deep.
West Conob's power plant consisted of a single triple-expansion reciprocating steam engine with cylinders of 28½, 47, and 78 inches (72, 120, and 200 cm) with a 48-inch (120 cm) stroke. She was outfitted with three Foster water-tube boilers, each with a heating area of 4,150 square feet (386 m2) and containing 52 4-inch (10 cm) and 827 2-inch (5.1 cm) tubes. Her boilers were heated by mechanical oil burners fed by two pumps, each 6 by 4 by 6 inches (15 × 10 × 15 cm) with a capacity of 30 U.S. gallons (110 L) per minute. Fully loaded, the ship could hold 6,359 barrels (1,011.0 m3) of fuel oil. West Conob's single screw propeller was 17 feet 1 inch (5.21 m) in diameter with a 15-foot-3-inch (4.65 m) pitch and a developed area of 102 square feet (9.5 m2). The ship was designed to travel at 11 knots (20 km/h), and averaged 11.1 knots (20.6 km/h) during her first voyage in June 1919.
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