Originally Posted by
Not_a_boffin
Really? Which of Geoje, Okpo etc have these covered docks of which you speak?
There was a covered slipway (or two in fact) on the Clyde back in the day. Also two covered building docks on the Wear. Not there anymore. There is one on the Torridge as well.
And I have tried all weather working on the Tyne. Bit wet and windy from time to time, but eminently do-able.
Indeed,
The problem for the yards on the Tyne and the Wear was that their location was totally unsuited to the new breed of supertankers and bulk carriers that have come to dominate merchant shipping. For example, I was one of over a million people who watched the ESSO Northumbria leave the Tyne for her first outing in open waters. That was about as big as dare be launched from a Tyne slipway. The timing was vital, due to tidal times and the narrowness of the river. As for the wear. I mourn the loss of Austin & Pickersgill, to whom we owe a debt for the old 'Liberty Ship' design. In the seventies, they came out with their modern SD14 version. But it was too late and the new breed was unstoppable.
Last, but not least. Yours truly had a chat with a careers teacher less than a decade after the Northiumbria took to sea. Having tiold him my grandfather was a welder, that was it. He deployed his enormous knowledge and proclaimed I should get a welding apprenticeship at Swans.... I responded " What for ? They'll be gone soon. Have you seen all those little Koreans building huge ships for a bowl of rice a day?" He looked at me like I was some creature from another planet. The rest, as they say, is history.