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Shipbuilding is the construction of and other Watercraft. In modern times, 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.
Until recently, with the development of complex non-maritime technologies, a ship has often represented the most advanced structure that the society building it could produce. Some key industrial advances were developed to support shipbuilding, for instance the sawing of timbers by mechanical saws propelled by in Dutch shipyards during the first half of the 17th century. (2025). 9781623492311, Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 9781623492311 The design process saw the early adoption of the logarithm (invented in 1615) to generate the curves used to produce the shape of a hull, especially when scaling up these curves accurately in the mould Lofting. (2025). 9781782970453, Oxbow Books. ISBN 9781782970453
Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both commercial and military, are referred to as naval engineering. The construction of is a similar activity called boat building.
The dismantling of ships is called ship breaking.
The earliest evidence of maritime transport by human is the settlement of Australia between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago. This almost certainly involved , possibly equipped with some sort of sail. (2025). 9780199925070, OUP. ISBN 9780199925070 Much of the development beyond that raft technology occurred in the "nursery" areas of the Mediterranean and in Maritime Southeast Asia. Favoured by warmer waters and a number of inter-visible islands, boats (and, later, ships) with water-tight hulls (unlike the "flow through" structure of a raft) could be developed. (2025). 9781473825598, Pen and Sword Books Limited. ISBN 9781473825598 (2025). 9781781593929, Pen and Sword Archaeology. ISBN 9781781593929 The ships of ancient Egypt were built by joining the hull planks together, edge to edge, with tenons set in mortices cut in the mating edges. A similar technique, but with the tenons being pinned in position by dowels, was used in the Mediterranean for most of classical antiquity. Both these variants are "shell first" techniques, where any reinforcing frames are inserted after assembly of the planking has defined the hull shape. Carvel construction then took over in the Mediterranean. Northern Europe used clinker construction, but with some flush-planked ship-building in, for instance, the bottom planking of cogs. The north-European and Mediterranean traditions merged in the late 15th century, with carvel construction being adopted in the North and the centre-line mounted rudder replacing the quarter rudder of the Mediterranean. These changes broadly coincided with improvements in sailing rigs, with the three masted ship becoming common, with square sails on the fore and main masts, and a fore and aft sail on the mizzen.
Ship-building then saw a steady improvement in design techniques and introduction of new materials. Iron was used for more than fastener (nails and bolts) as structural components such as iron knees were introduced, with examples existing in the mid-18th century and from the mid-19th century onwards. This was partly led by the shortage of "compass timber", the naturally curved Lumber that meant that shapes could be cut without weaknesses caused by cuts across the wood grain of the timber. Ultimately, whole ships were made of iron and, later, steel.
Austronesian ships varied from simple canoes to large multihull ships. The simplest form of all ancestral Austronesian boats had five parts. The bottom part consists of a single piece of hollowed-out log. At the sides were two planks, and two horseshoe-shaped wood pieces formed the prow and stern. These were fitted tightly together edge-to-edge with inserted into holes in between, and then lashed to each other with ropes (made from rattan or fiber) wrapped around protruding lugs on the planks. This characteristic and ancient Austronesian boatbuilding practice is known as the "lashed-lug" technique. They were commonly with pastes made from various plants as well as Paper mulberry and fibres which would expand when wet, further tightening joints and making the hull watertight. They formed the shell of the boat, which was then reinforced by horizontal ribs. Shipwrecks of Austronesian ships can be identified from this construction as well as the absence of metal nails. Austronesian ships traditionally had no central rudders but were instead steered using an oar on one side. (2025). 9781407302898, Archaeopress. ISBN 9781407302898 (2025). 9780190277727 ISBN 9780190277727 (2025). 9780071594561, International Marine/McGraw-Hill. ISBN 9780071594561
Austronesians traditionally made their sails from woven mats of the resilient and salt-resistant pandanus leaves. These sails allowed Austronesians to embark on long-distance voyaging. (2025). 9780824840938, Hawai'inuiakea School of Hawaiian Knowledge; University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 9780824840938
The ancient Champa of Vietnam also uniquely developed basket-hulled boats whose hulls were composed of woven and resin- bamboo, either entirely or in conjunction with plank . They range from small (the o thúng) to large ocean-going trading ships like the ghe mành.
The ships of Phoenicia seem to have been of a similar design.
Austronesians (especially from western Island Southeast Asia) were trading in the Indian Ocean as far as Africa during this period. By around 50 to 500 AD, a group of Austronesians, believed to be from the southeastern coasts of Borneo (possibly a mixed group related to the modern Ma'anyan, Banjar people, and/or the Dayak people) crossed the Indian Ocean and colonized Madagascar. This resulted in the introduction of outrigger canoe technology to non-Austronesian cultures in the coast.
Southern Chinese junks were based on keeled and lashed-lug Austronesian ship known as po by the Chinese, from the Old Javanese parahu, Javanese prau, or Malay perahu – large ship.Manguin, Pierre-Yves. 2012. "Asian ship-building traditions in the Indian Ocean at the dawn of European expansion", in: Om Prakash and D. P. Chattopadhyaya (eds), History of science, philosophy, and culture in Indian Civilization, Volume III, part 7: The trading world of the Indian Ocean, 1500–1800, pp. 597–629. Delhi, Chennai, Chandigarh: Pearson. Southern Chinese junks showed characteristics of Austronesian ships that they are made using timbers of tropical origin, with keeled, V-shaped hull. This is different from northern Chinese junks, which are developed from flat-bottomed riverine boats. The northern Chinese junks were primarily built of pine or fir wood, had flat bottoms with no keel, water-tight bulkheads with no frames, transom (squared) stern and stem, and have their planks fastened with iron nails or clamps.
It was unknown when the Chinese people started adopting Southeast Asian (Austronesian) shipbuilding techniques. They may have been started as early as the 8th century, but the development was gradual and the true ocean-going Chinese junks did not appear suddenly. The word "po" survived in Chinese long after, referring to the large ocean-going junks.
The empire of Majapahit used jong, built in northern Java, for transporting troops overseas. The jongs were transport ships which could carry 100–2000 tons of cargo and 50–1000 people, 28.99–88.56 meter in length. The exact number of jong fielded by Majapahit is unknown, but the largest number of jong deployed in an expedition is about 400 jongs, when Majapahit attacked Pasai, in 1350.Hill (June 1960). "". Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 33: pp. 98, 157: "Then he directed them to make ready all the equipment and munitions of war needed for an attack on the land of Pasai – about four hundred of the largest junks, and also many barges (malangbang) and galleys." See also Nugroho (2011). pp. 270, 286, quoting Hikayat Raja-Raja Pasai, 3: 98: " Sa-telah itu, maka di-suroh baginda musta'idkan segala kelengkapan dan segala alat senjata peperangan akan mendatangi negeri Pasai itu, sa-kira-kira empat ratus jong yang besar-besar dan lain daripada itu banyak lagi daripada malangbang dan kelulus." (After that, he is tasked by His Majesty to ready all the equipment and all weapons of war to come to that country of Pasai, about four hundred large jongs and other than that much more of malangbang and kelulus.)
Sometime around the 12th century, northern European ships began to be built with a straight sternpost, enabling the mounting of a rudder, which was much more durable than a steering oar held over the side. Development in the Middle Ages favored "round ships", with a broad beam and heavily curved at both ends. Another important ship type was the galley, which was constructed with both sails and oars.
The first extant treatise on shipbuilding was written by Michael of Rhodes, a man who began his career as an oarsman on a Venetian galley in 1401 and worked his way up into officer positions. He wrote and illustrated a book that contains a treatise on shipbuilding, a treatise on mathematics, much material on astrology, and other materials. His treatise on shipbuilding treats three kinds of galleys and two kinds of round ships.Pamela O. Long, David McGee, and Allan M. Stahl, eds. The Book of Michael of Rhodes: A Fifteenth-Century Maritime Manuscript, 3 vols. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009)
During the early years of the Ming dynasty, the Ming government maintained an open policy towards sailing. Between 1405 and 1433, the government conducted seven diplomatic Ming treasure voyages to over thirty countries in Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East and Eastern Africa. The voyages were initiated by the Yongle Emperor, and led by the Admiral Zheng He. Six voyages were conducted under the Yongle Emperor's reign, the last of which returned to China in 1422. After the Yongle Emperor's death in 1424, his successor the Hongxi Emperor ordered the suspension of the voyages. The seventh and final voyage began in 1430, sent by the Xuande Emperor. Although the Hongxi and Xuande Emperors did not emphasize sailing as much as the Yongle Emperor, they were not against it. This led to a high degree of commercialization and an increase in trade. Large numbers of ships were built to meet the demand.
The Ming voyages were large in size, numbering as many as 300 ships and 28,000 men. The shipbuilders were brought from different places in China to the shipyard in Nanjing, including Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, and Huguang (now the provinces of Hubei and Hunan). One of the most famous shipyards was Long Jiang Shipyard (龙江船厂), located in Nanjing near the Treasure Shipyard where the ocean-going ships were built. The shipbuilders could build 24 models of ships of varying sizes.
Several types of ships were built for the voyages, including Shachuan (沙船), Fuchuan (福船) and Baochuan (treasure ship) (宝船). Zheng He's treasure ships were regarded as Shachuan types, mainly because they were made in the treasure shipyard in Nanjing. Shachuan, or 'sand-ships', are ships used primarily for inland transport. However, in recent years, some researchers agree that the treasure ships were more of the Fuchuan type. It is said in vol. 176 of San Guo Bei Meng Hui Bian (三朝北盟汇编) that ships made in Fujian are the best ones. Therefore, the best shipbuilders and laborers were brought from these places to support Zheng He's expedition.
The shipyard was under the command of Ministry of Public Works. The shipbuilders had no control over their lives. The builders, commoner's doctors, cooks and errands had lowest social status.Chan, Alan Kam-leung, et al. Historical Perspectives on East Asian Science, Technology and Medicine. VII, World Scientific, Singapore University Press, 2003. p. 107 The shipbuilders were forced to move away from their hometown to the shipyards. There were two major ways to enter the shipbuilder occupation: family tradition, or apprenticeship. If a shipbuilder entered the occupation due to family tradition, the shipbuilder learned the techniques of shipbuilding from his family and is very likely to earn a higher status in the shipyard. Additionally, the shipbuilder had access to business networking that could help to find clients. If a shipbuilder entered the occupation through an apprenticeship, the shipbuilder was likely a farmer before he was hired as a shipbuilder, or he was previously an experienced shipbuilder.
Many shipbuilders working in the shipyard were forced into the occupation. The ships built for Zheng He's voyages needed to be waterproof, solid, safe, and have ample room to carry large amounts of trading goods. Therefore, due to the highly commercialized society that was being encouraged by the expeditions, trades, and government policies, the shipbuilders needed to acquire the skills to build ships that fulfil these requirements.
Shipbuilding was not the sole industry utilising Chinese lumber at that time; the new capital was being built in Beijing from approximately 1407 onwards, which required huge amounts of high-quality wood. These two ambitious projects commissioned by Emperor Yongle would have had enormous environmental and economic effects, even if the ships were half the dimensions given in the History of Ming. Considerable pressure would also have been placed on the infrastructure required to transport the trees from their point of origin to the shipyards.
Shipbuilders were usually divided into different groups and had separate jobs. Some were responsible for fixing old ships; some were responsible for making the keel and some were responsible for building the helm.
After 1477, the Ming government reversed its open maritime policies, enacting a series of isolationist policies in response to wokou. The policies, called Haijin (sea ban), lasted until the end of the Ming dynasty in 1644. During this period, Chinese navigation technology did not make any progress and even declined in some aspect.
From the 17th century, some kingdoms added brass or iron cannons to their vessels.Smith, "The Canoe in West African History", Jrn Afr Hist 11:4, pp. 515–533 By the 18th century, however, the use of swivel cannons on war canoes accelerated. The city-state of Lagos, for instance, deployed war canoes armed with swivel cannons.
Shipyards became large industrial complexes, and the ships built were financed by consortia of investors. These considerations led to the documentation of design and construction practices in what had previously been a secretive trade run by master shipwrights and ultimately led to the field of naval architecture, in which professional designers and draftsmen played an increasingly important role. Even so, construction techniques changed only very gradually. The ships of the Napoleonic Wars were still built more or less to the same basic plan as those of the Spanish Armada of two centuries earlier, although there had been numerous subtle improvements in ship design and construction throughout this period. For instance, the introduction of tumblehome, adjustments to the shapes of sails and hulls, the introduction of the wheel, the introduction of hardened copper fastenings below the waterline, the introduction of copper sheathing as a deterrent to shipworm and fouling, etc.
During World War II, the need for cargo ships was so great that construction time for went from initially eight months or longer, down to weeks or even days. They employed production line and prefabrication techniques such as those used in shipyards today. The total number of dry-cargo ships built in the United States in a 15-year period just before the war was a grand total of two. During the war, thousands of Liberty ships and Victory ships were built, many of them in shipyards that did not exist before the war. And, they were built by a workforce consisting largely of women and other inexperienced workers who had never seen a ship before (or even the ocean).Sawyer, L.A. and Mitchell, W. H. The Liberty Ships: The History of the "Emergency" Type Cargo Ships Constructed in the United States During the Second World War, pp. 7–10, 2nd ed., Lloyd's of London Press Ltd., London, 1985. .Jaffee, Capt. Walter W. The Lane Victory: The Last Victory Ship in War and Peace, pp. 4–9, 15–32, 2nd ed., Glencannon Press, Palo Alto, California, 1997. .Herman, Arthur. Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II, pp. 135–16, 178–180, Random House, New York, 2012. .
Historically, the industry has suffered from the absence of global rules and a tendency towards (Government-Subsidy) over-investment due to the fact that shipyards offer a wide range of technologies, employ a significant number of workers, and generate income as the shipbuilding market is World economy.
Japan used shipbuilding in the 1950s and 1960s to rebuild its industrial structure; South Korea started to make shipbuilding a strategic industry in the 1970s, and China is now in the process of repeating these models with large state-supported investments in this industry. Conversely, Croatia is privatising its shipbuilding industry.
As a result, the world shipbuilding market suffers from over-capacities, depressed prices (although the industry experienced a price increase in the period 2003–2005 due to strong demand for new ships which was in excess of actual cost increases), low profit margins, trade distortions and widespread subsidisation. All efforts to address the problems in the OECD have so far failed, with the 1994 international shipbuilding agreement never entering into force and the 2003–2005 round of negotiations being paused in September 2005 after no agreement was possible. After numerous efforts to restart the negotiations these were formally terminated in December 2010. The OECD's Council Working Party on Shipbuilding (WP6) will continue its efforts to identify and progressively reduce factors that distort the shipbuilding market.
Where state Subsidy have been removed and domestic industrial policies do not provide support in high labor cost countries, shipbuilding has gone into decline. The British shipbuilding industry is a prime example of this with its industries suffering badly from the 1960s. In the early 1970s British yards still had the capacity to build all types and sizes of merchant ships but today they have been reduced to a small number specialising in defence contracts, luxury yachts and repair work. Decline has also occurred in other European countries, although to some extent this has reduced by protective measures and industrial support policies. In the US, the Jones Act (which places restrictions on the ships that can be used for moving domestic cargoes) has meant that merchant shipbuilding has continued, albeit at a reduced rate, but such protection has failed to penalise shipbuilding inefficiencies. The consequence of this is that contract prices are far higher than those of any other country building oceangoing ships.
When referring to the ship type, then China, South Korea and Japan are the producing countries of the carrier ships as mentioned above. While Italy, France, Finland, Germany, United Kingdom and other countries are the makers of cruise ships (the most), icebreakers, crane vessel and so on.
The market share of European ship builders began to decline in the 1960s as they lost work to Japan in the same way Japan most recently lost their work to South Korea and China. Over the four years from 2007, the total number of employees in the European shipbuilding industry declined from 150,000 to 115,000. Zagreb Institute of Public Finance, Newsletter No. 64, December 2011, In 2022, some key shipbuilders in Europe are Fincantieri, Damen Group, Navantia, Naval Group and BAE Systems.
Shipbuilding output of the United States also underwent a similar change. The US is ranked the 10th largest shipbuilder worldwide. The top companies that build large , such as and , include Huntington Ingalls, Bollinger and General Dynamics. In the small to medium military vessels category, key shipbuilders include Vigor Industrial, and VT Halter Marine. As the US Navy is shifting to a new fleet architecture that is more widely distributed, unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) development is rapidly propelled to higher priority. Key strategic Program of Record includes prototyping and construction of up to 9 MUSVs, for which a sole contract was awarded to L3Harris Technologies, who partnered with Swiftships to build the MUSVs.
In 2018, the US Defense Department initiated Overlord Program, and developed USV Prototypes 1 (NOMAD) and 2 (RANGER). Both of them took part in multiple fleet level exercises and demonstrations, traveled in autonomous mode, and tested numerous payloads. Nomam, formerly known as Riley Claire, is a converted offshore patrol vessel, which was built by Swiftships. The objective of the Ghost Fleet Overlord program is to convert large, commercial vessels to autonomous systems.
, China builds nearly 75% of new vessels on order and has the capacity to build more ships in one month than the United States builds in a year.
Ship design work, also called naval architecture, may be conducted using a ship model basin. Previously, loftsmen at the of were responsible for taking the dimensions, and details from drawings and plans and translating this information into templates, battens, ordinates, cutting sketches, profiles, margins and other data. However, since the early 1970s computer-aided design became normal for the shipbuilding design and lofting process.
Modern ships, since roughly 1940, have been produced almost exclusively of welding steel. Early welded steel ships used steels with inadequate fracture toughness, which resulted in some ships suffering catastrophic brittle fracture structural cracks (see problems of the Liberty ship). Since roughly 1950, specialized steels such as ABS Steels with good properties for ship construction have been used. Although it is commonly accepted that modern steel has eliminated brittle fracture in ships, some controversy still exists.Drouin, P: "Brittle Fracture in ships – a lingering problem", p. 229. Ships and Offshore Structures, Woodhead Publishing, 2006. Brittle fracture of modern vessels continues to occur from time to time because grade A and grade B steel of unknown toughness or fracture appearance transition temperature (FATT) in ships' side shells can be less than adequate for all ambient conditions.
As modern shipbuilding panels on a panel line become lighter and thinner, the laser hybrid welding technique is utilized. The laser hybrid blend focuses a higher energy beam on the material to be joined, allowing it to keyhole with a much higher depth to width ratio than comparative traditional welding techniques. Typically a MIG process trails the keyhole providing filler material for the weld joint. This allows for very high penetration without excessive heat input from decreased weld metal deposited leading to less distortion and welding at higher travel speeds.
A lot of maintenance is carried out while at sea or in port by ship's crew. However, a large number of repair and maintenance works can only be carried out while the ship is out of commercial operation, in a ship repair yard.
Prior to undergoing repairs, a tanker must dock at a deballasting station for completing the tank cleaning operations and pumping ashore its slops (dirty cleaning water and hydrocarbon residues).
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