Type C1 ship


Type C1 was a designation for cargo ships built for the United States Maritime Commission before and during World War II. Total production was 493 ships built from 1940 to 1945. The first C1 types were the smallest of the three original Maritime Commission designs, meant for shorter routes where high speed and capacity were less important. Only a handful were delivered prior to Pearl Harbor. But many C1-A and C1-B ships were already in the works and were delivered during 1942. Many were converted to military purposes including troop transports during the war.
The Type C1-M ship was a separate design, for a significantly smaller and shallower draft vessel. This design evolved as an answer to the projected needs for military transport and supply of the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II.
Type C1 ships under the control of the British Ministry of War Transport took an Empire name even if built with another name e.g. Cape Turner.

Origins

The United States Maritime Commission was an agency of the United States government that was created by the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, passed by Congress on 29 June 1936 and replaced the U.S. Shipping Board which had existed since World War I. It was intended to formulate a merchant shipbuilding program to design and build five hundred modern merchant cargo ships to supplement and replace the World War I vintage vessels, including Hog Islander ships, that comprised the bulk of the U.S. Merchant Marine. These old standardized ship designs ranged in size from 5,075dwt to 7,500dwt, 8,800dwt and 9,600dwt for the most common mass-produced types. They either had steam turbines or triple expansion engines, burning oil their boilers. None of the World War I standard designs had diesel engines.
From 1939 through the end of World War II, MARCOM funded and administered the largest and most successful merchant shipbuilding effort in world history, producing thousands of ships, including Liberty ships, Victory ships, and others, notably type C1 ships, type C2 ships, type C3 ships, type C4 ships, T2 tankers, Landing Ship Tank s and patrol frigates. By the end of the war, U.S. shipyards working under MARCOM contracts had built a total of 5,777 oceangoing merchant and naval ships.
The C series of ships differed from the Liberty and Victory ships. The first C series vessels were designed prior to hostilities and were meant to be commercially viable ships to modernize the US Merchant Marine, and reduce the US reliance on foreign shipping. The Liberty ships were a throwback to late 19th century British designs with reciprocating steam engines, but were very cheap to build in large quantities; Victory ships evolved from the Liberty ships but used modern turbine engines. The C series ships were more expensive to produce, but their economic viability lasted well into the late 1960s and early 1970s in military and merchant fleets. Several ships are still in operation.

Variations

The Type C1-A and C1-B ships were similar in design, All had a rated top speed of. The primary difference between them was that C1-A ships were shelter deck ships, while C1-B ships were full scantling ships. The C1-M was the type with the largest production; it was a significant variation from the original C1 design in size, performance and profile; these were shorter, narrower, slower and the superstructure was farther toward the stern.
The C-1 employed two kind of propulsion systems. One group comprising 19 C1-A, 85 C1-B and all 13 C1-S-AY1 used 4,000 hp compound turbines and turbo-electric generators for auxiliary power. The other group of 46 C1-A and 10 C1-B used two 2,000 hp diesel engines connected to a single reduction gearset via magnetic couplings, in the same family as the system used on various C3 ships where four such engines were coupled to one gearset for a total of 8,000 hp. The C1-M variant used diesel propulsion exclusively, but only a single 2,000 hp range engine and without magnetic couplings. All turbines and diesel engines were sourced from a variety of manufacturers.
With the exception of ships built for specific shipping lines before the war, the majority of the C1-A and C1-B ships were given two-word names beginning with "Cape", such as.

C1-A

Forty-six Type C1-A ships were built at Pennsylvania Shipyards, Inc. in Beaumont, Texas, with another 19 being built by Pusey and Jones in Wilmington, Delaware. The majority were built with diesel motors, though 19 were built with steam turbine engines. These were shelter deck ships, having a very light upper deck, the sides of which are open ports to the second or main deck.
The first keels were laid in 1939. Two of the Pusey and Jones ships were converted to PT boat tenders before entering service, including.

Some of the diesel vessels were powered by 2, 6-cylinder Nordberg 2-stroke engines driving the single shaft via magnetic couplings and a reduction gear-box. They were manufactured by Nordberg Manufacturing Company. The engine speed was 220 rpm and the shaft 110 rpm. This configuration made maneuvering very easy when entering port, as one engine was run in reverse and the other ahead; change of direction was simply performed by energizing the appropriate magnetic coupling. All auxiliary equipment was electric. The engine room was a pleasure to operate and the workmanship outstanding.
  • Pennsylvania Shipyards, Inc., TX: 46
  • Pusey and Jones, DE: 19
Converted to Troop Ships
4 Modified and redesignated
The Type C1-B ships were built in eight different yards, all but 15 in West Coast yards, all but 20 in California, the majority at Consolidated Steel Corporation in Wilmington, California. All but ten of the C1-B ships had steam turbine engines; the diesels were all built at Seattle-Tacoma SB Corp., Tacoma, Washington and Western Pipe & Steel, San Francisco, California, with each producing five ships. The C1-B were full scantling ships with three decks in which the frames hold the same dimensions as the upper deck. Full scantling ships have deck gear sufficient to completely unload their cargoes. A C1-B example and perhaps the most well-known was the.
In 1939, under the Long Range Shipbuilding Program, contracts for 38 ships in batches of 2 to 5 vessels were awarded after one round of competitive bidding. Bethlehem San Francisco and Bethlehem Staten Island only produced on this occasion for the Maritime Commission. For Seattle-Tacoma, the C1-B contract prompted the reopening of the Tacoma yard. Consolidated Steel entered the shipbuilding business in 1939. Timing makes these ship constructions interesting, as they were on slipways when the U.S. shipbuilding industry was going through the transition of 1940/1941 towards war time production and many ships, whether afloat or building, were reassigned to fulfill new duties. Unsuccessful bids were made by the General Engineering & Dry Dock Company, the Tampa Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, the Newburgh Shipbuilding and Repair Company of New York, the Sun Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, the Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company. Bids were opened on 11 July 1939. Pusey and Jones successfully bid on 2 C1-A ships. Contracts were awarded in September 1939. Two of these early-built ships joined the ship launching parade of the Liberty Fleet Day on 27 September 1941.
  • Federal Shipbuilding, Kearny, NJ: 5
  • * ...
  • Consolidated Steel, Long Beach, CA: 4
  • * ...
  • Bethlehem Sparrows Point, MD: 5
  • * ...
  • Bethlehem San Francisco, CA: 5
  • Bethlehem Staten Island, NY: 5
  • * ...
  • Western Pipe & Steel, San Francisco, CA: 5
  • * ...
  • Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding, WA: 5 diesel
after the Emergency Shipbuilding Program picked up momentum, Consolidated Steel remained the only manufacturer of the C1-B type.
  • Consolidated Steel, Long Beach, CA: 14
  • Consolidated Steel, Wilmington, CA: 47
Converted to Troop Ships
7 Modified and redesignated
The C1-S-AY1 subtype of thirteen ships built by Consolidated Steel Corporation was modified from the C1-B design for use as troopships by Great Britain under lend-lease called Landing Ship Infantry, Large and they were originally ordered as troopships. These ships were all given two-word names beginning with "Empire", such as SS Empire Spearhead. was lost at the Normandy Invasion, to a mine. was sunk by a torpedo from a German U-boat on 28 December 1944. The original Cape names are what the ships were launched as and by which name they were known to the Maritime Commission.