Talk:Okhta shipyard

Page move

I've moved this from the previous title ("W:m Crichton & C:o Okhta shipyard") to this one ("Okhta Shipyard") as the period under Crichton's ownership was only a small part (18 years) of a 280 year history. I trust everyone is OK with that. Xyl 54 (talk) 15:19, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

The article was focused on the Crichton era and the company and it told just briefly about the earlier and later stages. Moreover, there is a separate article about the follower, Petrozavod yard. Now this article about Okhta shipyard tells a lot about a company that operated the yard for a relatively short period of time. In my opinion it would make sense to improve the Petrozavod article and write there short summaries about the predecessors, including W:m Crichton & C:o Okhta yard, which should still have a separate article. --Gwafton (talk) 17:26, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

I started discussion about the topic on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships under title Article title according to the yard or operator name. --Gwafton (talk) 18:30, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Table of ships built

A few of thoughts on the table, which can presumably be expanded over time, and replicated for the preceding and subsequent operators of the yard:

• it would be useful to give some indication of the size of the vessels - tonnage/length for example - and have a 'Remarks' column for additional explanation. This would be of particular value while so few entries link to more detailed articles (for example, one doesn't get any idea of the nature of a "mine cutter" from the links to those two words)
• the heading "Project number" may be misunderstood. It has been Soviet and Russian practice in the modern era (not sure when it began) to use the word "Проект" in the sense of Design, usually with a number, of which examples would be often be built in several shipyards, each of which would allocate production numbers, what we normally call Yard Numbers in English. This is pretty well understood by those interested in shipbuilding, I think. For example, here it can be seen that Petrozavod built a very large number of Project 730 harbour tugs, each of which has its own Yard Number (though some are unknown)
• where there are multiple small un-named vessels with consecutive yard numbers and with other details in common, it might be more practical and proportional to combine them into, eg "1785-1896 mine cutters". Davidships (talk) 01:15, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

The source for the list is Knorring's book about shipbuilding history in Turku. Comments to the above points:

• The list in the book includes some additional data for some vessels, like tonnage, length, width and/or engine output – this data could be possibly added there. Those "cutters" are a bit problematic. The original source tells about kaateri. Normally cutter is kutteri in Finnish. After some checking I got the impression that kaateri means a motor cutter, but I might be wrong as well.
• The "Project number" here has got nothing to do with the Russian practice. Actually it means order number. Crichton gave an order number for each ship, boiler, steam engine, pump etc. the company produced, and the numbering was the same for both Turku and Okhta yards. Any preceding or subsequent numbering system used by other operators of the site has got no link to this one. When Crichton-Vulcan was established in 1924, the new manager Allan Staffans ordered to count all the ships which the predecessors had produced (the predecessors were Åbo Skeppswarf, W:m Crichton & C:o Turku and Okhta yards, Åbo Mekaniska Werkstad and Ab Vulcan). Somehow they got a nice round number, which was 700. So the first yard number given at C-V was 701 (see the list). The same numbering is still in use in Turku – including the Russian-built ships!

Yes, that's what I thought - so "Yard No." would be a better heading. Davidships (talk) 20:12, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

• Worth of considering, at least if you are sure that all the listed vessels belong to the same series – otherwise it might be misleading. --Gwafton (talk) 19:58, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

The short or long way say the same thing: Yard Nos 1785-1896 were all mine cutters built in 1908 for the Imperial Russian Navy. Of course if differentiating info emerged then one would adjust accordingly. It just makes the table more manageable and user-friendly if unneccesary scrolling is avoided. Davidships (talk) 20:12, 25 March 2019 (UTC)