500 DELIVERIES OF NAVAL VESSELS BY PRIVATE YARDS BY CALENDAR YEARS Ships of 1,000 light displacement tons and larger DISPLACEMENT TONS IN THOUSANDS It will be seen from examination of chart I that as few as two and as many as 54 ships have been ordered in 1 year since 1951. In 2 recent years, 1967 and 1969, there were very few new orders-eight and five new starts, respectively. For a balanced picture, charts III and V portray naval ship production and delivery levels in the 1946-69 period. MARITIME VESSELS This segment of the American shipbuilding market includes those merchant vessels, intended for foreign trade operations, whose construction is financed totally or partially by the Public Treasury. As with naval vessels, annual decisions by the Congress are made in the light of other national needs, and again there have been wide fluctuations. Federal appropriations toward support of merchant vessel construction, during the last decade, have ranged from a high of $132 million in fiscal year 1966 to a low of nearly $16 million in the current fiscal year. Chart II shows the merchant vessels ordered between 1949 and 1969. |