Shipbuilding facts for kids

An expedition's shipwrights building a brigantine, 1541

Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.

Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both commercial and military, are referred to as "naval engineering". The construction of boats is a similar activity called boat building.

The dismantling of ships is called ship breaking.

Related pages

• Boston Navy Yard

Images for kids

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  Generalized diagram (cross-section) of lashed-lug planking in Butuan Boat Two (Clark et al., 1993), the ancient Austronesian boat-building technique which forms the outer hull first before the interior ribs (in contrast to other boat-building traditions)

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  Construction of the Naga Pelangi in 2004, a Malaysian pinas, using traditional Austronesian lashed-lug techniques. Note the protruding dowels on the upper edges of the planks and the fiber caulking in the seams.

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  One of the Javanese Borobudur ships (c. 778-850 AD), depicting a typical Southeast Asian Austronesian trading ship with tanja sails and double outriggers

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  Illustration of a djong, large Austronesian trading vessels, extant until 17th century CE. Shown with the characteristic tanja sail of Southeast Asian Austronesians. Vessels like these became the basis of Southern Chinese junks.

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  Model of a Fijian drua with a crab-claw sail from the Otago Museum, an example of an Austronesian ocean-going vessel

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  A two-masted Chinese junk, from the Tiangong Kaiwu of Song Yingxing, published in 1637

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  Zheng He's Treasure Ship Model

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  Illustration of some shipbuilding methods in England, 1858

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  Babbitt's rotary engine

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  MS Oasis of the Seas, the third largest passenger ship in the world, under construction at the Turku shipyard that was taken over by Meyer Werft in 2014

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  A TI-class supertanker built by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in Okpo-dong, South Korea.

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  Construction of prefabricated module blocks of HMS Dauntless at BAE's Portsmouth Shipyard.

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  River shipyard in Komárno (Slovakia).

See also

In Spanish: Construcción naval para niños