SS Ohio - Construction and Launch

Construction and Launch

Hull 190, as the Ohio was referred-to before her launch, was a skilful compromise, promising broad cargo-carrying capacity to the merchant and speed, balance and stability to the mariner. Above the waterline, the construction echoed the outward curve of a schooner's bow, bearing the influence of the old American clipper ship design. The design of Hull 190 was influenced also by the menace of a rearming Germany and a Japanese Empire bent on military expansion. The approach of war had influenced this design, the unofficial conversations between military and oil chiefs resulted in a ship of 9,264 gross register tons, 515 feet in overall length, and capable of carrying 170,000 barrels (27,000 m3) of fuel oil, bigger and with a larger capacity than any other tanker previously built. The ship was completed in the unusually short time of seven months and fifteen days.

The Westinghouse turbine engines developed 9,000 driveshaft horsepower at ninety revolutions per minute, which allowed a maximum sixteen knots, a speed never attained before by any screw tanker. Her method of construction was controversial. For some years, the issue of welding versus riveting had been raging on both sides of the Atlantic. Hull 190 was built using the new-fashioned welded method, hopefully proving once and for all its reliability. The ship also had a composite framing system with two longitudinally continuous bulkheads, which divided the ship into twenty-one cargo tanks.

The ship was launched the day after that scheduled, prompting superstitious fear in the welders, steel-cutters and other craftsmen who had assembled to watch her launch. Hull 190 was christened in a ceremony presided over by the mother of the President of the Texas Oil Company, Mrs. Florence E. Rodgers who, grasping the ceremonial bottle of champagne in her hand pronounced the words:

I name this good ship Ohio. May God go with her and all who sail in her. Good luck…

The ship slid down No. 2 slipway, entering the waters of the Delaware River. The existence of the Ohio would, in its initial years, be uneventful and ordinary, plying between Port Arthur and various other American harbours. She set a speed record from Bayonne to Port Arthur, covering 1,882 miles (3,029 km) in four days and twelve hours, an average of more than seventeen knots.