UK shipbuilders steer a course through the fiscal storm
Glasgow's Riverside Museum is as much a memorial as a celebration of the
city's shipbuilding tradition. Its jagged steel frame, by renowned
architect Mr Zaha Hadid, echoes the triumphs of industrial design that
have floated down the Clyde over the centuries, as well as the
construction sheds that once stood on the site. Inside, it displays
scale models of the famous ships built on the river HMS Hood, the
Lusitania, the QE2 and the now antiquated tools involved.
The 63 year old artist Mr Tom McKendrick worked nearby at Clydebank's John Brown & Co yard, where he helped build the QE2, the last great ship of that era. He doesn't sentimentalize an industry that has been vastly diminished since he left it in 1969, two years after the QE2 launched. He said that "It was a brutal, hostile, bitter and cold environment. It was dirty, there was asbestos everywhere. You saw things you maybe shouldn't have seen. I think I saw my first death in the yards when I was 15."
But, says McKendrick, there was incredible camaraderie and a sense of community whose loss rules out a sustained revival of the industry in Scotland. He added that "People say it would be great if they brought shipbuilding back, but it can't happen. It depended on this massive turnover of apprentices, these skills being passed on father to son, father to son."
Talk of the UK's industrial transformation often focuses on the bygone days of shipbuilding. So the Clyde is a fitting backdrop to any discussion of how to boost manufacturing's contribution to the economy beyond 10% of GDP. According to consultancy IHS, 134 vessels 1.47 million gross tonnes of shipping were produced in the UK in 1976. But competition from Japan, South Korea and now China has taken its toll, with the industry producing just four ships in 2011.
The head of the UK's Society of Maritime Industries argues that focusing on the past is obscuring the achievements of the present. A thriving industry exists, says Mr John Murray, referring to companies that work on a range of products from tsunami detection systems to seabed mapping. He added that "The maritime industry is considerably more diverse than it was 50 years ago. It is much more on a par with what the aerospace sector has been doing."
According to the UK Marine Industries Alliance, the wider sector employs nearly 90,000 people with a turnover of nearly GBP 10 billion.
However, another British shipbuilding hub is under threat in a development that will trigger more soul searching. In Portsmouth, one of the industry's last major outposts faces an uncertain future because UK shipbuilding's largest remaining customer is the cash strapped taxpayer.
Portsmouth Naval Base is rich in industrial heritage, having built the Mary Rose and HMS Dreadnought, while another famous product, HMS Victory, stands on display in one corner of the base next to modern destroyers. At the other end of the base, that historic production line was still going last month, when a 6,000 tonne front section of the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth emerged from the sheds to be towed to Rosyth in Scotland for assembly.
Source : http://www.steelguru.com/international_news/UK_shipbuilders_steer_a_course_through_the_fiscal_storm/268075.html
The 63 year old artist Mr Tom McKendrick worked nearby at Clydebank's John Brown & Co yard, where he helped build the QE2, the last great ship of that era. He doesn't sentimentalize an industry that has been vastly diminished since he left it in 1969, two years after the QE2 launched. He said that "It was a brutal, hostile, bitter and cold environment. It was dirty, there was asbestos everywhere. You saw things you maybe shouldn't have seen. I think I saw my first death in the yards when I was 15."
But, says McKendrick, there was incredible camaraderie and a sense of community whose loss rules out a sustained revival of the industry in Scotland. He added that "People say it would be great if they brought shipbuilding back, but it can't happen. It depended on this massive turnover of apprentices, these skills being passed on father to son, father to son."
Talk of the UK's industrial transformation often focuses on the bygone days of shipbuilding. So the Clyde is a fitting backdrop to any discussion of how to boost manufacturing's contribution to the economy beyond 10% of GDP. According to consultancy IHS, 134 vessels 1.47 million gross tonnes of shipping were produced in the UK in 1976. But competition from Japan, South Korea and now China has taken its toll, with the industry producing just four ships in 2011.
The head of the UK's Society of Maritime Industries argues that focusing on the past is obscuring the achievements of the present. A thriving industry exists, says Mr John Murray, referring to companies that work on a range of products from tsunami detection systems to seabed mapping. He added that "The maritime industry is considerably more diverse than it was 50 years ago. It is much more on a par with what the aerospace sector has been doing."
According to the UK Marine Industries Alliance, the wider sector employs nearly 90,000 people with a turnover of nearly GBP 10 billion.
However, another British shipbuilding hub is under threat in a development that will trigger more soul searching. In Portsmouth, one of the industry's last major outposts faces an uncertain future because UK shipbuilding's largest remaining customer is the cash strapped taxpayer.
Portsmouth Naval Base is rich in industrial heritage, having built the Mary Rose and HMS Dreadnought, while another famous product, HMS Victory, stands on display in one corner of the base next to modern destroyers. At the other end of the base, that historic production line was still going last month, when a 6,000 tonne front section of the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth emerged from the sheds to be towed to Rosyth in Scotland for assembly.
Source : http://www.steelguru.com/international_news/UK_shipbuilders_steer_a_course_through_the_fiscal_storm/268075.html
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