Post by Avatar on Jan 9, 2024 21:00:22 GMT
Prepared 1 August 1892 by,
Elias Mathew Vashon LLD for
The Bashon Law Group.
Memorandum For Record for 31 July 1892 Meeting at William Cramp and Sons Shipbuilding and Engineering Company:
Participants at the meeting;
Mister Charles Francis Brush, MEE, representing the American Consortium of Manufactured Electronics on behalf of its board of Directors.
Mister Theodore William Cramp, representing the builder-contractor.
Doctor Irene Goss Davenport, Owner of the Union Iron Works, American Shipping Lines, representing the Tesla Experimental Laboratories.
Mister Edoardo Masdea, consultant naval architect and designer of the artifacts under discussion.
Captain Montgomery Sicard, representative for Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin F. Tracy.
Mister Theodore Delavan Wilson, chief constructor of the United States Navy, representing the Office of Procurement.
=============================================
The meeting began with an overview of the armored warship project under construction in Drydock Number Two at William Cramp and Sons shipyard in Philadelphia. The gist of the overview was actually a complaint review by all other parties of the reasons and excuses put forward by the builder contractor for his delays in construction schedule. In summary, the excuses were as follows:
1. Necessity to increase the size of Drydock Number Two from a length, beam, depth volume of 150 meters, 25 meters, 10 meters to
200 meters, 40 meters, 25 meters. A corresponding new pumping and locks system had to be manufactured to fit the expanded volume dry-dock, which added to the overall start delays on the actual artifact constructed within the drydock.
2. Changes in the blueprints demanded by the architect.
3. Changes in the blueprints demanded by the customer.
4. Delays in steel deliveries from the Carnagie Group.
5. Technical calculation errors made from the original blueprints and the revisions from each subsequent change order.
6. Delays in subcontractor supplied engines, motors and drive assemblies.
7. Labor force inexperience with such an armored warship project.
8. Other contracted work which had higher priority from the customer.
9. Funding and payment delays, which held up supply purchases and hiring of needed labor.
10. Politics.
Once the excuses were presented and rejected by the principal actors and parties present, not representative for Cramp and Sons, the discussion turned to the current problem at this date, which was and is how to bring the project back into correct alignment with the schedules and the means available. At this part of the meeting, marine architect general Edoardo Masdea brought to the attention of Doctor Davenport-Tesla that the principle delay still remained her failure to provide the electric generator sets for the power trains as specified in the subcontract to which the Tesla Experimental Laboratories was the named supplier. Doctor Davenport-Tesla pointed out that the specified electric generator sets were delayed at Billings; Montana (See MAP.), since the Hole in the Wall Gang blew up the railroad bridge just west of Sheriden, Wyoming. It would not be possible for the Union Iron Works Electric Motor Plant Number One of Seattle, Washington constructed generator sets to be forwarded east to Cramp and Sons for installation into the armored warship, until that railroad bridge repair was completed.
It would take a few weeks for the Army corps of engineers to rebuild that bridge. Doctor Davenport-Tesla suggested a possible solution if time constraints were critical. The drive train components scheduled for the Ameriship cargo passenger liner, SES Richmond (GWT 10,000 metric tons) could be substituted as a complete assembly for the armored warship.^1
This proposal was considered and rejected when Mister Theodore Cramp convinced the conference participants that the time required to move the power train from the liner to the warship would take about the same amount of time as it would to wait for the army to repair the bridge and wipe out the Hole in the Wall bandits, so that the Union Iron Works generator sets could be transported east.
By vote, the participants adopted the Cramp counterproposal. The contract was amended to allow for the unexpected delay, caused by the incident at Sheriden, Wyoming. Other outstanding issues were postponed until the generator sets could be delivered.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
^1 Private note: Doctor Davenport-Tesla was perfectly aware that this was the situation, but she wanted to put the blame for this fiasco where it belonged, instead of let Edoardo Masdea deflect the blame for the delays that he apparently personally caused when he failed to do his due diligence in his supervision of the work order changes required to make his original proposal fit American standards and practices. He had failed to make the necessary adjustments in internal ship framing in his original drawings when he was confronted with the different steam engine electric propulsion drives Americans used than the British style steam engine direct drives he first designed the armored warship to use. At least that was the implied reasoning as understood at the meeting. Other issues might have also been involved?
====================================================
Conversation after the meeting:
*(William Cramp & Sons shipyard, Delaware Avenue and Cumberland Street. Mister Charles Francis Bush, Mister Theodore Cramp, Mister Elias Mathew Vashon and Doctor Irene Goss Davenport Tesla, walk together with a cloud of Pinkerton guards in close escort and attendance to discuss the aftermath of the contentious meeting. This is "fishy", but this is Philadelphia, not Copenhagen, so let us listen in to the conversation, dear reader. Author.)
...
Brush: "Why did you lie, Irene?"
Vashon: "Don't answer that question."
Cramp: "What lie?"
Vashon: "No one lied."
Davenport-Tesla: "Beautiful weather, is it not?"
Brush: "It is raining, Irene."
Cramp: "What lie?"
Brush: "Come to think of it, maybe your proposal to switch out the drive train on the Richmond into the Albany would have been a better solution, Irene."
Davenport-Tesla; "Then why did you vote against it, Chuck?"
Vashon: "Don't answer that question."
Cramp: "What lie?"
Vashon: "Do you want to lose your contracts and your company, 'Mister Cramp', Sir?"
Cramp: "What?"
Davenport-Tesla: "Hypothetically, let us assume, that it is in our collective best interests that a Philadelphia shipbuilder with a very overextended line of credit, and a real risk of exposure to a hostile company takeover by the Edison Combine, finds a 'legitimate legal and economic excuse' to not have its contracts and builds on the weighs cancelled. An avenue to additional capital infusion, a plausible excuse for its incompetence in management would be attributed, instead, to "unforeseen acts of god and men independent of its own internal decisions and corporate management acts'. This might be arranged through a prime customer, if that customer could be convinced that it was "acts of god and men" and not the stupidity of the shipbuilding company owners, who could not keep up with change orders and hire the additional draftsmen and ship builders to meet the contract time schedules; n'est-ce pas?"
Cramp: "We didn't have the money!"
Brush: "You could have asked for technical help and borrowed people to tide you over."
Cramp: "From your lot? What do you know about shipbuilding?"
Davenport-Tesla whistles: "I've been working on the railroad..."^2
Cramp: "What?"
Brush: "She owns the Union Iron Works, a SHIPYARD, you idiot."
Vashon: Facepalm.
Cramp: "I..."
Davenport-Tesla: "... should be grateful, that you have friends who look out for you."
Vashon: Buries his head in his hands.
^2 Who, do you think, had that railroad bridge blown up as an act of god and men?
Elias Mathew Vashon LLD for
The Bashon Law Group.
Memorandum For Record for 31 July 1892 Meeting at William Cramp and Sons Shipbuilding and Engineering Company:
Participants at the meeting;
Mister Charles Francis Brush, MEE, representing the American Consortium of Manufactured Electronics on behalf of its board of Directors.
Mister Theodore William Cramp, representing the builder-contractor.
Doctor Irene Goss Davenport, Owner of the Union Iron Works, American Shipping Lines, representing the Tesla Experimental Laboratories.
Mister Edoardo Masdea, consultant naval architect and designer of the artifacts under discussion.
Captain Montgomery Sicard, representative for Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin F. Tracy.
Mister Theodore Delavan Wilson, chief constructor of the United States Navy, representing the Office of Procurement.
=============================================
The meeting began with an overview of the armored warship project under construction in Drydock Number Two at William Cramp and Sons shipyard in Philadelphia. The gist of the overview was actually a complaint review by all other parties of the reasons and excuses put forward by the builder contractor for his delays in construction schedule. In summary, the excuses were as follows:
1. Necessity to increase the size of Drydock Number Two from a length, beam, depth volume of 150 meters, 25 meters, 10 meters to
200 meters, 40 meters, 25 meters. A corresponding new pumping and locks system had to be manufactured to fit the expanded volume dry-dock, which added to the overall start delays on the actual artifact constructed within the drydock.
2. Changes in the blueprints demanded by the architect.
3. Changes in the blueprints demanded by the customer.
4. Delays in steel deliveries from the Carnagie Group.
5. Technical calculation errors made from the original blueprints and the revisions from each subsequent change order.
6. Delays in subcontractor supplied engines, motors and drive assemblies.
7. Labor force inexperience with such an armored warship project.
8. Other contracted work which had higher priority from the customer.
9. Funding and payment delays, which held up supply purchases and hiring of needed labor.
10. Politics.
Once the excuses were presented and rejected by the principal actors and parties present, not representative for Cramp and Sons, the discussion turned to the current problem at this date, which was and is how to bring the project back into correct alignment with the schedules and the means available. At this part of the meeting, marine architect general Edoardo Masdea brought to the attention of Doctor Davenport-Tesla that the principle delay still remained her failure to provide the electric generator sets for the power trains as specified in the subcontract to which the Tesla Experimental Laboratories was the named supplier. Doctor Davenport-Tesla pointed out that the specified electric generator sets were delayed at Billings; Montana (See MAP.), since the Hole in the Wall Gang blew up the railroad bridge just west of Sheriden, Wyoming. It would not be possible for the Union Iron Works Electric Motor Plant Number One of Seattle, Washington constructed generator sets to be forwarded east to Cramp and Sons for installation into the armored warship, until that railroad bridge repair was completed.
It would take a few weeks for the Army corps of engineers to rebuild that bridge. Doctor Davenport-Tesla suggested a possible solution if time constraints were critical. The drive train components scheduled for the Ameriship cargo passenger liner, SES Richmond (GWT 10,000 metric tons) could be substituted as a complete assembly for the armored warship.^1
This proposal was considered and rejected when Mister Theodore Cramp convinced the conference participants that the time required to move the power train from the liner to the warship would take about the same amount of time as it would to wait for the army to repair the bridge and wipe out the Hole in the Wall bandits, so that the Union Iron Works generator sets could be transported east.
By vote, the participants adopted the Cramp counterproposal. The contract was amended to allow for the unexpected delay, caused by the incident at Sheriden, Wyoming. Other outstanding issues were postponed until the generator sets could be delivered.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
^1 Private note: Doctor Davenport-Tesla was perfectly aware that this was the situation, but she wanted to put the blame for this fiasco where it belonged, instead of let Edoardo Masdea deflect the blame for the delays that he apparently personally caused when he failed to do his due diligence in his supervision of the work order changes required to make his original proposal fit American standards and practices. He had failed to make the necessary adjustments in internal ship framing in his original drawings when he was confronted with the different steam engine electric propulsion drives Americans used than the British style steam engine direct drives he first designed the armored warship to use. At least that was the implied reasoning as understood at the meeting. Other issues might have also been involved?
====================================================
Conversation after the meeting:
*(William Cramp & Sons shipyard, Delaware Avenue and Cumberland Street. Mister Charles Francis Bush, Mister Theodore Cramp, Mister Elias Mathew Vashon and Doctor Irene Goss Davenport Tesla, walk together with a cloud of Pinkerton guards in close escort and attendance to discuss the aftermath of the contentious meeting. This is "fishy", but this is Philadelphia, not Copenhagen, so let us listen in to the conversation, dear reader. Author.)
...
Brush: "Why did you lie, Irene?"
Vashon: "Don't answer that question."
Cramp: "What lie?"
Vashon: "No one lied."
Davenport-Tesla: "Beautiful weather, is it not?"
Brush: "It is raining, Irene."
Cramp: "What lie?"
Brush: "Come to think of it, maybe your proposal to switch out the drive train on the Richmond into the Albany would have been a better solution, Irene."
Davenport-Tesla; "Then why did you vote against it, Chuck?"
Vashon: "Don't answer that question."
Cramp: "What lie?"
Vashon: "Do you want to lose your contracts and your company, 'Mister Cramp', Sir?"
Cramp: "What?"
Davenport-Tesla: "Hypothetically, let us assume, that it is in our collective best interests that a Philadelphia shipbuilder with a very overextended line of credit, and a real risk of exposure to a hostile company takeover by the Edison Combine, finds a 'legitimate legal and economic excuse' to not have its contracts and builds on the weighs cancelled. An avenue to additional capital infusion, a plausible excuse for its incompetence in management would be attributed, instead, to "unforeseen acts of god and men independent of its own internal decisions and corporate management acts'. This might be arranged through a prime customer, if that customer could be convinced that it was "acts of god and men" and not the stupidity of the shipbuilding company owners, who could not keep up with change orders and hire the additional draftsmen and ship builders to meet the contract time schedules; n'est-ce pas?"
Cramp: "We didn't have the money!"
Brush: "You could have asked for technical help and borrowed people to tide you over."
Cramp: "From your lot? What do you know about shipbuilding?"
Davenport-Tesla whistles: "I've been working on the railroad..."^2
Cramp: "What?"
Brush: "She owns the Union Iron Works, a SHIPYARD, you idiot."
Vashon: Facepalm.
Cramp: "I..."
Davenport-Tesla: "... should be grateful, that you have friends who look out for you."
Vashon: Buries his head in his hands.
^2 Who, do you think, had that railroad bridge blown up as an act of god and men?