Reg Austin: Early Mistakes

"On the first ship we built which was about 1952-54, we welded it incorrectly. We built up units in the shop and then we took them to the berth to weld them together. Now, we went along the bottom for quite some distance, started at mid-ships and worked away both ways, but as soon as we started to weld, the ship wanted to lift on the foreward end. It was quite difficult in fact to keep this ship down and although it was going up slightly when these lower units were being welded, when we put the upper units on this brought the fore-end up more and more. 80% of the ship was erected and we were watching the keel sites under the ship daily, almost morning and night I think. With the heat of the day the ship would come down at the foreward because it was expanding on the top, and on the frosty mornings up it went! I was a chargehand at that time and a Naval Officer walked past and said to me 'What is it today then?' I said 'Just over four inches.' 'Oh, that's not so bad' he said, 'got some up North they're six inches!' So we all made a similar mistake, we were all feeling our way. But from then on we started to build the mid-ships section and go right up to the main deck at the centre, and gradually work away. But we wouldn't stretch along the bottom with the lower units as we did before."