Ship Draughtsman Continued

Progression Towards Future Developments

Skill at any particular occupation depends upon aptitude and training, and both craftsmen and tradesmen are assumed to have a certain level of skill, yet the definitions of ‘craft’ and ‘trade’, and the essential difference between them, is less clearly understood.

The craftsman has always been in the position of determining how his, or her, work is presented — the design, appearance, and embellishment of the finished work are theirs. Similarly, the ship draughtsman selects from a number of variables and selects what, in their opinion, best fits the requirements, and then presents the work in the form in which they think best shows up their design. They are able to embellish the work aesthetically to their own taste, even though this aspect is not absolutely necessary.

Tradesmen, while every bit as skilful, do however execute their work on the instructions of others. The form in which their work is carried out is predetermined, and they have little input into its design, nor is embellishment of the work allowed even though they, like the craftsmen, take pride in the execution of their work and obtain a measure of job satisfaction.

The essential difference between the two is that the craftsman is able to exercise control of the design and presentation of the work, whereas the tradesman may not. In these respects we can conclude that the ship draughtsman was, up to the early 1960s, trained as a craftsman.

Technical changes such as the development of welding, the increase in the size of vessels, and new ship types would not, in themselves, have altered the way the ship draughtsman carried out his work. The prefabrication of ships, however, resulted in production departments dictating the format and method of the presentation of information, so that by the late 1970s control of the drawing process was substantially lost, even though the draughtsman retained control of the design process.

The introduction of computers in the early 1980s resulted in the craft skill being negated as Draughtsmen became technicians compiling electronic data. Drawings and details could be selected from files, and modified by others, so that the final drawing need no longer be the work of a single draughtsman. The hand-drawn plan with its individual printing style and other idiosyncrasies had gone, and with them, the last element of craftsmanship. Many of the design tasks performed by the Draughtsmen were now available as computer software, which further reduced the required knowledge base.

Technical reorganization and commercial pressures, influenced by political events, resulted in the elements of control of presentation, extended training structure, and responsibility in a semi-supervisory role being removed, thus destroying the craftsman status. The parallel erosion of access to the higher levels of management, generated by changes in education and training, and the differential in wages, hours, and pensions, resulted in the labour organization of the Draughtsmen becoming similar to that of the manual trades, thus diminishing their craft or employment status.

Commercial and political influences affecting the Tyne and Wear Draughtsmen, and women, have been considered in a recent study,⁴⁰ and wider national studies are also available.⁴¹

The impact of these factors reduced the craft of ship draughtsman to that of a trade generally, and the closure of the north-east region’s shipyards in particular destroyed that trade. The ever diminishing number of ship draughtsmen continue to work as and where employment is available in the shipbuilding and maritime centres of the world. Centres which no longer include the Tyne or the Wear.

All credit to Colin Tipping for his Documentation on Twentieth Century Shipbuilding 

References

1 El. Attwood, Textbook of Theoretical Naval Architecture (Longmans Green, 1902);