prepreg question

I researched the Cement Ship in Santa Cruz, and it turns out it was a World War I vintage ship, not a Liberty Ship. The history is interesting however:

Long before the waves and winter storms cracked the hull and sunk the ship into the sand, the S. S. Palo Alto was a 435-foot long, 7,500-ton oil tanker built for use during World War I. When the U.S. government commissioned new ships to replace those destroyed by German submarines, the U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation built ships from reinforced concrete, using technology developed by a Norwegian civil engineer, Nicolay Knudtzon Fougner, and his brother Hermann.

In 1919, the Palo Alto was constructed along with a sister ship, the Peralta, at the U.S. Naval Shipyard in Oakland, by the San Francisco Shipbuilding Company. The cement used for building the ship’s thin concrete hull came from Davenport, and it is thought that some of the brick used in place of gravel to lighten the weight was rubble from the San Francisco earthquake. The ship was equipped with a 2,800 horsepower steam engine, a bronze propeller, white Norwegian ash decks, and 14 compartments to hold 3 million gallons of oil.

The war ended before the Palo Alto was completed, so it was sailed from the shipyard in Oakland to be anchored at Pier 33 in San Francisco in January, 1921. Concrete ships were not popular post-war, so the Palo Alto was eventually stripped of her engine and propeller, and sold to the Seacliff Amusement Corporation in 1929. In 1930, the ship was towed to Seacliff Beach by a Red Stack tugboat, where it was beached to be refitted as a pleasure ship, and the 630 ft. fishing pier was built to connect with the ship’s stern.

S. S. Palto AltoThe Palo Alto’s renovations included a 54 by 154 ft. dance floor, a 54 ft. heated swimming pool, a café, and carnival type concessions. In the summer of 1930, 3,000 people attended the opening of the ship’s Rainbow Ballroom, which featured famous big bands like Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey. The ship was also a hotspot for games of chance. There were slot machines and bingo on the deck, and it’s rumored, gambling below it. As legend has it, during the Prohibition the surrounding beach was also a notorious hotspot for deliveries of illegal liquor.

After two summer seasons the owners went broke. In the following winter of 1932, the Seacliff Amusement Corporation went bankrupt and a storm cracked the ship’s hull in the middle. The ship was stripped of its valuables, and in 1936, was sold to the state for one dollar. Originally, the ship’s estimated cost was $1.5 million.

In 2001, public access onto the S. S. Palo Alto was permanently closed. Battered by the storms of 2016-17, the stern upended, endangering the structure of the pier and leading to its indefinite closure. Despite its inevitable decline, the iconic cement ship still holds historical and sentimental value for locals and has created a sanctuary for sealife and sandbar for surfers. Only time and the elements will tell how long this unique nautical relic will remain above water.

Am 14.03.26 um 03:42 schrieb Phil Hobbs:

or if they have collected enough neutrons. A problem for Russian reactors as the core had to be transportable by railway in one piece, so there was no space for Boron shields. (having worked on material testing WRT reactors in a previous life.)

Clever way to claim a Steely Dan! Is that true with the vapor operation?

:-) Gerhard

The rip-stop fabric used for hot air balloons uses the same principle. There is a network of extra-strong threads woven into the fabric.. These are well-spaced, so they cause very little increase in the total weight but they stop any rips from propagating.

Of course the original steely dan was a novelty product. ;)

Grandfather Hobbs started a bolt works (Pacific Bolt Ltd) in Vancouver, then got frozen out by his partners around 1930. He then scraped together the cash to start one of the first minimills, Western Canada Steel Ltd.

Modern minimills make steel by melting scrap, but the original WCS, which was on Granville Island in Vancouver, had a furnace for reheating purchased ingots for the rolling mill.

They made a lot of rebar and train track as well as fasteners.

Dad started out as a steel salesman there, and wound up running the place. (Our family were never big stockholders, on account of the 1930 incident.)

The rolling mill burned down around 1956. The equipment survived, being all hydraulically controlled, but it was on the small side for the local demand.

So Dad took a flyer and bought Twigg Island, a desolate sand bank in the Fraser River. There was no way to get there by road, so it was very cheap, but building a bridge was way too expensive.

Fortunately, the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (which runs N-S halfway up BC) was expanding too, and had a single spur railway bridge for sale. Dad bought it for scrap prices, and had it floated down the Fraser on a pair of barges lashed together and installed as a bridge. That way they had barge and rail connections, which was key. I

Then they built one of the early modern minimills on Twigg Island, which flourished for decades until my uncle ran it into the ground by alienating the union employees completely. :( (He didn’t own the company either—his job went away too.)

Dad hated the idea of melting the old rolling mill for scrap, so he went looking for a good place to put a small rolling mill. He picked Honolulu.

At that time all the big hotels were going up at Waikiki, built from Japanese steel. There was lots of scrap available because 1950s cars rusted out fast in that climate, so it was a natural fit.

So he got a bunch of rich kamo’inas together and started Hawaiian Western Steel, Inc.

One of the company bylaws was that the annual meeting be held in February in Honolulu. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I think the pictured stackup wants

ground power sigs sigs power ground

But that doesn't seem enough signal layers if you're wanting parts on both sides.