cover image The Yard: Building a Destroyer at the Bath Iron Works

The Yard: Building a Destroyer at the Bath Iron Works

Michael S. Sanders. HarperCollins Publishers, $26 (253pp) ISBN 978-0-06-019246-4

This book is rich--in content, in texture and not least in integrity. Sanders has been a ghostwriter, but he finds his own voice in this story of a shipyard, a ship and their people. The yard is the Bath Iron Works (BIW), in Maine, and it has been building ships for more than a century. The ship is the U.S.S. Donald Cook, a state-of-the-art destroyer. From the first rough sizing of the plates to the actual launching takes almost four years. Sanders's greatest triumph is his description of shipbuilding processes in language that a lay reader can readily understand. His second achievement is his depiction of the shipyard culture. Sanders eschews an elegiac approach, depicting a shipbuilding community whose ties and loyalties cut across management-labor lines. Shipbuilding is a skilled craft that demands a synergy of strength and artistry. It is dirty. It is dangerous. And BIW's employees merit respect for their skills. At the book's end BIW, rather than fading from the scene, is poised to enter the 21st century at the cutting edge of ship construction. When the navy takes over, the Cook becomes the focus of a different but equally effective kind of crew. The shipyard community is local, coming largely from Bath itself, and it is essentially male. The Cook's commissioning crew is cosmopolitan, with a broad spectrum of backgrounds and experiences, and it includes three dozen women. The men and women who serve on the Cook are like their ship and its builders: among the best in the world. Sanders's own craftsmanship is as worthy of recognition as that of the shipbuilders whose story he so ably tells. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Nov.)