Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 19501 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| SD14: A STANDARD DESIGN CARGO VESSEL | 1968 | 1968-01-01 |
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Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Colour Sound: Sound Duration: 11 mins 17 secs Credits: Organisations: Turners Film Productions Sponsor: Austin & Pickersgill Ltd. Production: Bryan Copplestone, John Grant, Mike Harvey, David Cox, Terry Hoey, Tom Kilgour In Charge of Production: Brian Nicol Camera Assistant: David Eadington Sound Recordist: Eric Woodward Genre: Sponsored Subject: Working Life Ships Industry |
| Summary A promotional film produced by Turners Film Productions for Austin & Pickersgill Ltd Southwick Shipyard in Sunderland looking at the SD14 shelter deck cargo ship built by the company highlighting its reliability as a vessel as well as the speed at which the company can turn around construction. The film showcases the work of Austin & Pickersgill in ... |
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Description
A promotional film produced by Turners Film Productions for Austin & Pickersgill Ltd Southwick Shipyard in Sunderland looking at the SD14 shelter deck cargo ship built by the company highlighting its reliability as a vessel as well as the speed at which the company can turn around construction. The film showcases the work of Austin & Pickersgill in the design, construction, fitting out and sea trials of a number of SD14 vessels built at the yards.
The film opens with aerial views of...
A promotional film produced by Turners Film Productions for Austin & Pickersgill Ltd Southwick Shipyard in Sunderland looking at the SD14 shelter deck cargo ship built by the company highlighting its reliability as a vessel as well as the speed at which the company can turn around construction. The film showcases the work of Austin & Pickersgill in the design, construction, fitting out and sea trials of a number of SD14 vessels built at the yards.
The film opens with aerial views of Sunderland showing the river Wear and the Wearmouth Bridge in the distance and the Southwick Shipyards of Austin & Pickersgill with one SD14 cargo ship under construction on a slipway as a second undergoes fitting out along the opposite quayside.
A view of cranes at the Austin & Pickersgill shipyard changes to show the cargo ship Venture being launched into the Wear.
Title: SD.14
Title: A Standard Design Cargo Vessel
Another SD14 cargo ship is pulled along the Wear by tug boat, its propellers churning the waters as it goes through sea trials in the North Sea.
The film changes to show a cutaway drawing on an SD.14 cargo ship and a pointer identifying the aft engine room as well as the four holds forward.
Two men in lab coats sit at the controls of a large tank of water in which a model of an SD14 hull is being tested. In a design office, two men work on the designs for the tanker using a pencil and ruler.
A woman sits in an office at a machine typing in the shape of a steel plate, coding it into numerical terms. These conversions come out of the machine as paper tape which is then used for processing into a computer via magnetic tape.
In another part of the shipyard, a machine removes the rust and mill-scale from a section of plate steel. The polished metal is then spray painted with primer by an automated machine.
A man stands at the controls of a large numerically programmed burning machine that cuts four sections of shaped plates at the same time for the double-bottom assembly of an SD14 ship.
Out on the slipway a crane lifts one of the double-bottomed units into position on the bottom shell watched by shipyard workers. The first two of the side-panels are then put into position followed by a third which is being lifted into position by crane with the assistance and guidance of workers.
Underneath the ship and along the hull men work with burners and acetylene torches to weld and trim the metal sections together into a continuous structure.
Cranes lower one of the ships transverse bulkheads into position followed by a view of the ship now split into the four cargo holds seen previously in the cutaway drawing. Inside each of them men work to weld or trim sections together with burners.
The lower stern unit is fitted into position, followed by the rudder, the upper stern unit or fan-tail.
With the erection and welding completed a boring machine is used to ‘true up’ the stern to receive the stern tube. The propeller is then fitted and three men tighten up the propeller nut.
The first of three engine sections, the bedplate and crankshaft, is lowered by crane into the ship where it is secured by a number of workmen.
Fore-end units are lowered into position and welded and trimmed by burners completing the hull. A snow storm doesn’t distract the workers from adding the third and final section of the fore-end into position.
The ship’s mast is lowered into position and the film changes to show a ship being launched into the Wear along its slipway.
Moored along a quayside not far from the Wearmouth Bridge, the SD14 is being fitted out. Inside workmen install the accommodation and a joiner and his apprentice fit a pre-fabricated door frame. In another part of the ship workers fit cabin bulkhead panels, sliding them into position. Electricians install cabling and in a smaller store room a man lays cork slabs on the floor using bitumen glue. In the Engine Room insulation is installed in the room’s casing.
Inside the now finished engine room, men in white boiler suits looks over the five-cylinder 7000 horsepower Sulzer engine in readiness for testing. A man checks over the main switchboard of the ship's distribution system and another man the auxiliary machinery flat.
General views follow of a stairwell and rooms inside the ships accommodation area including the dayroom of the Captains suite, the 3rd Engineers cabin, a typical crewman’s cabin and the officers smoke room, their dining saloon, the crews mess room and galley. This is followed by views of the radio room and, next door, the combined chartroom and wheel house. From the wheelhouse a view of the ships forecastle and masts.
An SD14 is towed under the Wearmouth Bridge toward the North Sea for sea trials. It passes a large crane in the Southwick Engine Works with lettering along the gantry ‘Geo. Clark’. On the deck at sea, anchor trials are carried out with the chains being lowered and then raised. The cargo ship travels through the water, cutting through rough seas and swells. With the trials over, the film ends as the ship is towed back to port, the setting sun silhouetting the many large shipyard cranes along the riverside in the background.
End credit: Produced for Austin & Pickersgill Ltd. Southwick Shipyard, Sunderland, England
End credit: by Turners Film Productions, Newcastle upon Tyne, England
Context
Turners Film Productions made SD14: A Standard Design Cargo Vessel in 1968 for Austin & Pickersgill Ltd at the Southwick Shipyard in Sunderland. The design, construction, and trials of the SD14 are showcased in this sponsored film.
As a medium, film itself originated in the world of the modern industrial economy and the entrepreneur. Its history is inextricably linked with business and industry, a focus for the camera in the early decades being workers at the factory gates, travelling...
Turners Film Productions made SD14: A Standard Design Cargo Vessel in 1968 for Austin & Pickersgill Ltd at the Southwick Shipyard in Sunderland. The design, construction, and trials of the SD14 are showcased in this sponsored film.
As a medium, film itself originated in the world of the modern industrial economy and the entrepreneur. Its history is inextricably linked with business and industry, a focus for the camera in the early decades being workers at the factory gates, travelling and transport, the technical processes of mass production, or in the case of older industries such as coal mining, the human element dominated. As camera technique became more sophisticated, so the interest in the marketing potential of the medium grew amongst the major industries, leading many state sponsored and commercial industries to set up their own film units, for instance, the General Post Office (1933), Shell (1934) and chemical giants ICI (1929). The 1930s was a golden era for the documentary work of state or private industry sponsored film made by a growing number of independent firms in addition to in-house production units. It’s interesting to speculate on this increased visibility and commercial potential as an influence for new regional companies such as Turners, setting up in the late 30s. This genre of film is more recently prized by archivists due to its sociological, ethnographic, or evidentiary value. From the 1930s through to 1999, Newcastle-based Turners produced films and videos for many regional (and some national) businesses, industries and organisations, and also promoted themselves through film and photography. They recorded shipbuilding activities and ship launches for many well-known names in the industry over the years, from Swan Hunters on Tyneside to Bartram and Sons shipyards at South Dock, Sunderland, and Smith’s Dock on the River Tees in Middlesbrough. Originally, Turners started as a chemist shop in Pink Lane, Newcastle, run by Jack Turner, selling photographic supplies and cameras from 1931. The business grew into one of the North East’s leading photographic and cine retail firms, with 4 stores in Newcastle as well as branches in Whitley Bay, South Shields and Darlington. A new colour film processing laboratory was opened in the 1970s on Tyne Tunnel Trading Estate at North Shields to meet the increasing demand of holiday snaps, and by 1976 Turners was developing more than five million pictures a year. The earliest known film by Turners was a record of the visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to John Barran and Sons clothing manufacturers in Leeds, on February 22nd, 1939, which is preserved at Yorkshire Film Archive. Shipbuilding is an ancient trade that has evolved over the centuries and it has had many important moments throughout its history; one of which is the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution radically altered shipbuilding due to the new materials that were available. Iron was initially adopted in ship construction to replace certain areas of wooden hulls with a stronger material, but it was eventually used for making the hull itself due to its watertight nature. The building of a ship in this way took about eight months or longer. A high demand in cargo ships during World War II meant that construction needed to speed up to be completed within weeks, sometimes even days. During the war, Sunderland became important due to its large ship building industry however, this led to the city being one of the most bombed – King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited Sunderland in April 1943 to witness the severe damage caused. Sunderland had a long-standing shipbuilding history which brought a lot of fame to the city. At one time it was one of the largest shipbuilding towns worldwide, making a quarter of the world’s ships dating back to 1346 with Thomas Menville being recorded as the first shipwright in Hendon. By the 1890s, Sunderland had become one of the most important shipbuilding centres in the country. The first iron ships built in the town were in 1852 and the construction of wooden ships ceased manufacturing in 1876. In 1977 the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act was introduced in Great Britain. As a result of this, the shipbuilding industry in Great Britain was owned and managed by a public corporation – the British Shipbuilders Corporation – who operated from their headquarters at Benton House in Newcastle upon Tyne. The act nationalised 27 major shipbuilding and marine engineering companies as well as the three large UK aerospace companies, grouped together to form a single corporation, British Aerospace. The British Shipbuilders ceased operations in 1989 and the remaining shipyards – North East Shipbuilders Ltd.’s Pallion and Southwick Shipyards at Sunderland – closed down. North East Shipbuilders was formed through a merger between Sunderland Shipbuilders and Austin & Pickersgill – the film’s sponsor. This was not the first time that Austin & Pickersgill was part of a merger as the company was formed in 1954 by one between S.P. Austin & Son, founded in c.1826, and William Pickersgill & Sons, founded in 1838. Austin & Pickersgill’s SD14 ships ("Shelter Deck 14,000 tons") began production in 1965 as the company aimed to develop a low-cost shelter-deck cargo vessel to replace the ageing Liberty and other war-built cargo ships, which were at the end of their service lives. In order to get a tender for licences to produce the SD14, Austin & Pickersgill invited other shipbuilders to tender for licenses to build their design in the UK. However, only one could meet their requirements to build ships at the individual price of 915,000: Bartram & Sons, who were eventually bought out in 1968 by Austin & Pickersgill. The SD14 design was extremely successful and between 1968 and 1988, a total of 211 SD14s were completed. The majority were still operating in 1990. Until it was nationalised as part of British Shipbuilders in 1977, Austin & Pickersgill had a full order book in contrast to other UK shipbuilders of the era. References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponsored_film http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/964488/index.html https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/lifestyle/nostalgia/turners-photography-made-name-itself-1352069 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipbuilding https://www.sr-news.com/index.php/2014/10/10/sunderland-stories-sunderland-and-the-blitz/ https://englandsnortheast.co.uk/Shipbuilding.html https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/business/10865213.sunderlands-famous-shipyards-once-built-a-quarter-of-worlds-vessels/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Shipbuilders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_%26_Pickersgill |
