EFC Design 1116 (Revised Ward/Grays Harbor type):
Notes & Illustrations
EFC Design 1116: 4100 ton wood freighter, revised Ward (Grays Harbor) type
| Plan by Grays Harbor Motorship Corp. dated 14 October 1918 for their hulls 19-26 (EFC Hulls 2677-84, this one for hull 20, Agron). The new inboard profile does not show the centerline arch truss of Design 1005, and its omission plus smaller differences including the deletion of guns could easily have accounted for the small increase in cargo capacity from 4000 to 4100 deadweight tons. (Plan copyright Lloyd's Register Foundation: hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/archive-library/documents/lrf-pun-w1433-0136-p) |
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Notes: Design 1116 was the Ward (Grays Harbor) Design 1005 revised to gain a little more capacity (4100 vice 4000 deadweight tons) within its original hull dimensions and to meet the requirements of the main ship classification societies. The hull measurements of the new ships were identical to those of the previous batch, hulls 6-18. The new ships were designed with a type of construction that was acceptable to Lloyd's, efforts to get American Bureau of Shipping acceptance of the earlier Design 1005 ships having failed. Drawings suggest that the changes included omission of the centerline arch truss of Design 1005. The new design used the same engines as the earlier ships, although none of the ships received this machinery before delivery to the EFC. Of the eight ships to which the above plan applied, three, Adria (EFC Hull 2677), Agron (2678), and Agylla (2680), were delivered as hulls without engines in June-July 1919 and were laid up in Lake Union. A fourth ship, Agathon (2679), burned at the fitting out dock on 9 May 1919 when 81.5% complete and was cancelled effective that date. The last four ships, Alani (2681), Alazon (2682), Alcetas (2683), and Aleria (2684), were suspended on 23 November 1918 and cancelled on 19 March 1919. The hulls of Adria, Agron, and Agylla were sold before the end of January 1920 while at Lake Union to the National Oil Transport Co. of Maine, a subsidiary of the National Oil Company of New Jersey which also owned the National Shipbuilding Co. of Orange, Texas. The Seattle branch of the Texas shipyard then engined the three ships between March and June 1920, probably with spare Shipping Board engines and equipment. (It also engined the two Design 1111 ships.) The National Oil Company of New Jersey soon encountered financial problems and Adria was held at Rio de Janeiro in mid-1921 for non-payment of debts while the other two ships were laid up, Agron in Gatun Lake in the Panama Canal and Agylla at Valparaiso. Agylla was sold in mid-1922 to a Chilean firm and traded as Antofogasta until 1931, Agron was handed over in 1922-23 by the Shipping Board to the Panama Canal authorities but not used by them, and Adria was sold by Brazilian court order after many attempts in July 1924 to a Brazilian firm as Maceio but lasted only to 1925. Specifications: Design 1116 (Revised Ward). Wood hull. Deadweight tons: 4100 designed. Dimensions: 288.0' oa, 274.5' pp x 49.0' ext, 47.8' mld x 28.1' depth mld, ca. 25.3' draft load. Propulsion: 2 screws, 2 triple expansion engines, 2 standard watertube boilers, 1400 IHP, 8 knots. Configuration: 2 decks, 2 holds, 4 hatches. |
| A very derelict Agron (Design 1116, EFC Hull 2678) photographed "circa 1940." The ship was laid up in the Panama Canal Zone at the end of 1921 because of her owner's insolvency. She reportedly had several U.S. owners afterwards before being scrapped in 1934, but the photo suggests she was simply stripped and abandoned. She appears to be in a trench or wet dock alongside a small work area. (www.flickr.com/photos/ photolibrarian/52458775166/in/pool-navyship/) (Click photo to enlarge) |
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S.S. Agron (Design 1116, EFC Hull 2678) Under construction at the Grays Harbor Motorship Corp., Aberdeen, Wash. Photo No. 165-WW-501B-005 Source: U.S. National Archives, RG-165-WW |
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S.S. Agathon (Design 1116, EFC Hull 2679) Burning in the late afternoon of 9 May 1919 at the Grays Harbor Motorship yard. "The blazing hull of the steamer furnished one of the most spectacular fire scenes ever witnessed on Grays Harbor. The flames spread with amazing rapidity through every part of the ship, and within an hour had so riddled the planking that the outer works presented the appearance of a huge gridiron, riddled with jets of fire." The fire "of mysterious origin" also destroyed the plumbers, tinners, and pipefitters shops, but the rest of the yard with three hulls on the ways and seven lying at the docks were saved by a favorable wind. Photo No. None Source: Pacific Maritime Review, June 1919, page 151 (photo and quoted text). |
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S.S. Agron (Design 1116) A watercolour painting by Hallett Robertson Bartlett showing the Blue N Line steamship Agron anchored in Rose Bay, Sydney Harbour. She was sailing for the National Oil Transport Co. of Maine in 1920-21 and this view may show its house flag and stack marking. Part of a collection held by the Australian National Maritime Museum of ship watercolors drawn by Bartlett between 1919 and 1922 when he was a teenager. Photo No. None Source: collections.sea.museum/objects/21260/ss-agron-and-hmas-anzac |
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