# sam boats



## graham

anyone out there can tell me the fastest a samboat was built during the war it will settle a argument for a few of us regards graham


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## Bruce Carson

I wonder if the Liberty ships on lease to Britain and renamed with a "Sam" prefix were categorized by completion time.
Not a "Sam" ship, but a Liberty for US service, the 'Robert E Peary' was launched in 4 days, 15 hours and 29 minutes from keel laying. She went to sea on war duty 14 days after construction was started.

http://www.usmm.org/peary.html

Bruce C


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## John Rogers

To add to what Bruce wrote I pulled this off the web acouple of years ago.
In the early days of the program it was evident that the sheer quantity of ships was essential and the solution was "ship built by mile and chopped off by the yard". New shipyards were created by a syndicate formed by Todd Shipyards Inc., and the Henry J Kaiser group. 
Once the production lines got under way, the time taken to build a Liberty at Fairfield dropped to as little as 28 days. On the average, it took 592,000 man-hours to build a Liberty Ship. The construction of one Liberty ship required 3,425 tons of hull steel, 2,725 tons of plate, and 700 tons of shapes, which included 50,000 castings. 
The Kaiser shipyard in Oakland, California, built the S.S. ROBERT E PEARY, from keel laying to launching, in 4 days 15 hours and 30 minutes. The PEARY was then outfitted, painted, taken on sea trials, the crew was trained and the vessel fully loaded with 10,000 tons of cargo. The PEARY sailed 7 days after the keel was laid. 
It was felt that if the ship could make more than one trip it would be cost effective. Luckily, the Battle of the Atlantic swung to the Allied side, and only 196 Liberties were lost in combat. Approximately half the surviving fleet was sold at the wars end, and some of those were still in service in the early 1970's some 25 years later. 

John


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## Keltic Star

Rumour has it that they built them so fast that an empty Coke bottle was found inside a boiler some years later during maintenence. Didn't have time to remove it.


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## graham

Thanks for the information it will be of great help and i will be a few pints to the good
regards graham


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## william dillon

John Rogers said:


> To add to what Bruce wrote I pulled this off the web acouple of years ago.
> In the early days of the program it was evident that the sheer quantity of ships was essential and the solution was "ship built by mile and chopped off by the yard". New shipyards were created by a syndicate formed by Todd Shipyards Inc., and the Henry J Kaiser group.
> Once the production lines got under way, the time taken to build a Liberty at Fairfield dropped to as little as 28 days. On the average, it took 592,000 man-hours to build a Liberty Ship. The construction of one Liberty ship required 3,425 tons of hull steel, 2,725 tons of plate, and 700 tons of shapes, which included 50,000 castings.
> The Kaiser shipyard in Oakland, California, built the S.S. ROBERT E PEARY, from keel laying to launching, in 4 days 15 hours and 30 minutes. The PEARY was then outfitted, painted, taken on sea trials, the crew was trained and the vessel fully loaded with 10,000 tons of cargo. The PEARY sailed 7 days after the keel was laid.
> It was felt that if the ship could make more than one trip it would be cost effective. Luckily, the Battle of the Atlantic swung to the Allied side, and only 196 Liberties were lost in combat. Approximately half the surviving fleet was sold at the wars end, and some of those were still in service in the early 1970's some 25 years later.
> 
> John


 (Thumb) What a wonderful achievement, I wonder if it could be repeated these days?? (Applause)


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## rmc

*SS Samokla Liberty ship*

Hi everybody, i'm trying to track down a photo or anything that might help track some information on the SS Samokla. Dad worked on her and he'd like to see her again - he's 89.
Thanks in advance


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## seaman38

rmc said:


> Hi everybody, i'm trying to track down a photo or anything that might help track some information on the SS Samokla. Dad worked on her and he'd like to see her again - he's 89.
> Thanks in advance


SAMOKLA, built as JOSE ARTIGAS November 1943, but renamed SAMOKLA prior to entering service for MoWT (Ministry of War Transport), returned to USA in 1948 and Scrapped at Newport News, Virginia 1962. Sorry no photograph available from my source


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## Stephen J. Card

The time 4 day, 15 hours, 29 minute building time was done just for a 'one off' for making a 'record'. I believe a lot of the sections were 'pre-fab' and all of the pieces were simply put together on the slipway. No matter how it was done, it was a damn fine record. 

The new Saga ship, Spirit if Disccovery, 57,000 gt is now building. The keel was laid about a month ago and the trials next year will be done next summer, about 11 months. Of course it is all 'pre-fab' sections.


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## Chris Isaac

A lady invited to launch a Sam Boat mounted the podium and after taking hold of the bottle remarked "but there is no ship!".
"Just swing the bottle ma'am, it'll be there."


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## Samsette

Chris Isaac said:


> A lady invited to launch a Sam Boat mounted the podium and after taking hold of the bottle remarked "but there is no ship!".
> "Just swing the bottle ma'am, it'll be there."


Martha Raye, she of the big mouth, launched the Samjack. Her photo was still in the Captain's "day room" in 1948, now renamed Tydeus.
Maybe that was the lady Chris refers to.(Smoke)


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## rcarl616

I’m late to this party but I think I can answer the original question posed nearly fourteen years ago (!).

At Shipbuildinghistory.com, all Liberty ships are listed on eight web pages, beginning with http://shipbuildinghistory.com/merchantships/2libertyships1.htm and ending with http://shipbuildinghistory.com/merchantships/2libertyships8.htm. One column on each page is “Total Days” for construction of the ship. Preceding columns include date of keel-laying, date of launch, date delivered, days on ways, and days in water (at the fitting-out dock). 

The pages are ordered by “EMC #” (not sure of the meaning of EMC but on other pages the same number is referred to as “MC #” meaning “Maritime Commission number,” i.e., the number identifying a given ship on contracts let by the U.S. Maritime Commission to build merchant ships during World War II). In any case the names of all the Liberty ships are interspersed randomly, which is to say the “SAM” ships are not all located in one place.

Utilizing the Mark 1.0 Eyeball search system, I searched the eight pages first for SAM ships by name, then checked their respective total days of construction until, laboriously, I found what I believe is the SAM ship constructed in the shortest time. That ship was SAMOURI (initially named MANASSEH CULTER), which was constructed by the Oregon Shipbuilding Company, Portland, Oregon, USA, in 20 days between 12 September and 2 October 1943. See http://shipbuildinghistory.com/merchantships/2libertyships6.htm and scroll to EMC # 2094, also
http://shipbuildinghistory.com/shipyards/emergencylarge/koregon.htm and scroll to hull number 772. SAMOURI was torpedoed and lost in the Gulf of Aden in 1943 or 1944, sources vary. See also http://www.mariners-l.co.uk/LibShipsS.html#Samk and scroll to the name of the ship. This source notes her loss to have been 26 January 1944, torpedoed by U-188. This information is confirmed by UBoat.net at https://uboat.net/allies/merchants/ship/3175.html. There were no casualties in the sinking.


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## Stephen J. Card

I was told that 'EMC' was for EMERGENCY MARITIME COMMISSION.

'Sam'? That goes back to 1812. 'Uncle Sam'... as in 'Uncle Sam Wants YOU!' etc. 'Uncle Sam' for the 'US Federal Government'... they paid for them.

Farley Mowat is his book 'The Serpent's Coil'. There were many of the Liberty boats were named, "....many of them were named Sam This, San That and Sam Damn Everything and the name stuck!" A bit of truth in both of the comments. Sam was just a nickname.


Stephen


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## rcarl616

“Sam” was apparently more than simply a nickname. British authors W.H. Mitchell and L.A. Sawyer wrote “The Liberty Ships,” considered the Bible of Liberty ship information. In the book they devote several pages to the “Sam” Liberty ships, of which there were about 200. According to the authors, these ships “… were given a British form of nomenclature, this being the prefix “Sam” to each name … the basis of such naming was in reality a much more mundane and realistic one to the officialdom of the British Ministry of War Transport. Here, the vessels were given the type description of ‘Superstructure Aft of Midship’ and the initials of this description were applied to form the prefix to the class name.” 

The authors acknowledge that the “Sam” prefix has also been taken to refer to “Uncle Sam” as possibly a light-hearted gibe from the Americans in reminding the British where these Liberty ships originated. Of course, I would maintain that we Americans were and are much too self-effacing and respectful to engage in such conduct …

Ron Carlson
Alexandria, Virginia, USA


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## Keith Adams

Please ap news report by Daisy Nguyen May 23 2020 for good report and photos of major fire adjacent to the WWII Liberty ss " Jeremiah O'Brien"
Vessel saved but a very scary situation as stern mooring lines directly in way.
Pier shed wall approximately 20 feet from vessel, entire North end of shed engulfed in flames from an apparent explosion ( propane?) in commercial fishing craft nets, crab pots and equipment. Sorry for not knowing how to post photos or place in proper site. Cheers, "Snowy" Keith Adams


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## George Bis

In the 1960's as I remember correctly 5 burned out Liberty Ships were towed into Metal Industries at Faslane, Gareloch to be scrapped.
Apparently they were moored together in the USA. One caught fire and it spread to the other four


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## Stephen J. Card

George, I'm trying to find more on this fire on the Sam boats. While doing that I found a great paper.... Naval Accidents 1945 - 1988. Scary stuff!



Naval Accidents 1945 - 1988 - FAS.org

fas.org › wp-content › uploads › 2014/05 › NavalAcci...







PDF

1983 there were an average of 148 fires per year on U.S. ships or at shore bases. 3 ... During most of the 1960s, an average of about 300 aircraft were lost per year to ... 5 Nuclear weapons were introduced into the U.S. Navy in December 1951 when ... 10/19/48: A liberty boat of the Royal ... Delaware River near New Castle,.


Stephen


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## George Bis

Hi Stephen,
As near as I can remember this ship turned up on the Gareloch about 1960 and my Dad told me that she had been moored alongside four others in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland & Virginia and all five were burned out.


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## cory.l.irons

How did Western expansion and industrialization affect the lives of the different people who lived in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century?


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## George Bis

When I was at sea it was often said that US mass production also applied to their ships engineer's in the form of detailed and very pictorial manuals and given to new recruits with perhaps an engineering background but with perhaps little or no sea experience.
After all these were "new", not "replacement". Ships. and wouldn't sail themselves.
Apparently the UK had little interest in these innovation


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## Norm

I read somewhere that the American engineers were issued with 'Pink Certificates'. The machinery on these ships was very simple, being steam ships. Basically a boiler and a turbine, with basic controls.
After the war was over, many of these engineers were looking for work at sea furnishing the so called 'Pink Slips' These qualifications were totally rejected by the Australian marine engineers union, although considered by the ship owners.


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