Maritime Transport II 203

CONCRETE SHIPBUILDING IN CATALONIA L9I8.I92O

Enric Garcia Domingo.Barcelona Maritime Mus eum

ABSTRACT

The lack of raw materials for shipbuilding as a consequence of the Great War (1914-

1918) led to the building of ships made of ferro-concrete. As in other countries, in Spain

too there was an attempt to set up an industry of this kind. The Miroftes, the first

concrete merchant ship in Spain, was built in 1918 in Sant Adrià del Besòs, just outside

Barcelona, and there was also a project to set up a factory in Malgrat de Mar, in the

province of Barcelona. However the project came to nothing as a result, among other

things, of a crisis in the merchant navy.

t

¡¡

!i

I

Maritime TransPort II204

1 - CONCRETE SHIPS ?

Building vessels of concrete was a very suitable technique for small craft such as barges

since 1848, but it was also employed in making quite large merchant ships' although this

was due to very special "i."ur*t*"es and outsije of these particular periods they never

enjoyed much success.

Before going any further, it is necessary to say something about_this technique,, '']h:*going into the details of the different varieties such as the Hennebique system' the

Gabellini, etc. concrete, or ferro-concrete, ships were blilt on slips using wooden

formwork or shuttering. irt" ,*.*re or skeleton of the hull was made out of cylindrical

bars measuring of aboît one centimetre in diameter. A framework of wire netting with a

sideways mesh of about 90-95 cm was then placed over this tubular structure and tightly

fastened to it with wire. At this stage meti reinforcements, joins and beams could be

incorporated. After this, layers of concrete were applied quickly outside and inside' once

the hull had been constructed, it was smoothed óver to make the surface as slippery as

possible. Finally, the rest of the work was carried out just as in building any other ship: the

ãngirr"* *"." put in, it was generally fitted out and the masts and rigging were put up'

I r"¡¡

,t

lThe result was a sttong, durable hull, since the metal in the concrete was not affected by

corrosion. In theory, olntit" iron hul1s, they would become stronger over time' They had

peculiar shapes, as they had hardly any curved lines and the stem and stern were extremely

angular. They did noi n""d to bå painted and maintenance costs were minimal' Indeed'

Maritime Transport II 205

they proved to be very seaworthy in all conditions. Of course they also had several

drawbacks: they were generally a lot heavier than conventional vessels and, as opposed to

what happens with wood or steel, any major damage to the hull was practically impossible

to repair. Such major damage might be caused by the inability to withstand pressure, a

defect inherent in concrete, since it has no flexibility. Moreover, in the first years of ferro-

cement shipbuilding it seemed that it was cheaper than iron shipbuilding, this opinion

wan never clear.

Nowadays, scarcely any boats, other than a few leisure craft, are made of reinforced

concrete. Concrete shipbuilding had its day, but outside of particular periods such as the

two World Wars, the technique has never been anything more than a curiosity. At all

events, Spain also played a part in this history.

2. A SHORT MSTORY OF CONCRETE SHIPS

The first craft of this kind was a small boat built in Carces, France, by Joseph Louis

Lambot. The actual year is a matter of debate (1848 is the most likely), but what does

appear to be beyond doubt is that the vessel was presented at the Universal Exhibition in

Paris in 1855 and that one hundred years later it was still in perfect condition.

This was followed by others in Holland (for example, the rowing boat called De Zeemew

in 1887) and in the United States, but the first successful mechanically propelled vessel ofthis kind was designed by the Italian engineer Carlo Gabellini whose Liguria was built in

i896. From then on, service boats such as dredgers and barges began to be built inGermany, Denmark, Holland, Norway and the United Kingdom. However, no merchant

ship of this type had yet been built that was capable of sailing on the open sea until the

Nansenfjord. constructed by Fougner in Moss, Norway, was launched in August 1917.ltseerns that Fougner held the first patent for building merchant ships of concrete.

The First V/orld War (1914-1918), with the continual loss of shipping and the shortage ofmaterials such as timber and iron plate, gave rise to the heyday of this technique. In the

United Kingdom, companies that had already been set up stepped up their output: "Ferro-

concrete Ship Construction Co.", "James Pollock, Sons & Co.", etc' And in the United

States an Emergency Fleet was created that managed to have 12 ships at sea after the end

of the war.

In the period between the First and Second World Wars, most of the ships that had been

built disappeared, either shipwrecked or intentionally scuttled, and only in a fewexceptionãfcases did they survive, with different fates.l It was only with the outbreak ofWorld V/ar tr that the same circumstances arose again leading to concrete ships being

r

T

206 Maritime TransPort II

built once more. The most outstanding example of this is the shipbuilding proglanìme

undertaken in the United States known as the McCloskey Ships'

3. TIIE'?AVIMENTOS Y CONSTRUCCIONES S.A.'' STORY

During the Great v/ar (1914-1918) the lack of tonnage had as a consequence an

enormous demand of ships, and the Catalan shipyards (in a neutral country as was then

Spain) experienced u r"ru.g"n"" of activity, a veritable golden age, building new vessels

and refitting old ones. Tñe catalan shipbuilding industry set up a number of.new

shipyards: 'IAstilleros Minguell S.4.", "Astilleros B.B'G", "Empresas y Construcciones

Nuuh". S.4.", "Astilleros ãe Tarragona S.4." (building wooden sailing vessels' specially

three-mast schooners, an in the last case wooden steamers), and above all them "Astilleros

Cardona S.4." (later "Astilleros del Meditenaneo S.A'"), a failed intent to contend with

the great shipbuilding industry in the Basque country. Soon it was clear that this situation

was a mirage.

Demand of ships and lack of raw materials led to the development of ferro-concret

technology also in spain. ln lgIT the company "vallhonrat, castrillo an co." built in

Bilbao the catalina, a 17 m.length concrete batge;2 and also in places such as Santander

and the Canary Islands it is said that a number of smaller boats had already been made' a

matter which requires further research. However it was Catalonia where the first feno-

concrete merchant ship of any considerable size was built. One of the most interesting

cases was the story oi u "or.tpuny

called "Construcciones y Pavimentos S'A'" and the

ferro-concrete ship Mirotres which was supposed to be the first step in an ambitious

project.

Maritime Transport II 207

0

"Miró Trepat y Compañía Sociedad Comanditaria" was a firm that had been working inthe construction industry as consultants and building contractors since about 1900. It was

a family business formed essentially by the Miró Trepat brothers Alexandre, Josep María,

Laureà and Joan, in which their sister, Maria Antonia, was also a partner. Then the firm"Construcciones y Pavimentos S.4." 3 was founded on 20 April 1911. In addition to"Miró, Trepat y Cia" (which brought all its rights and obligations with it into the new

company and undertook to cease all its former activities), the other founding partners were

Rodrigo Figueroa Torres, Duke of Tovar, Juan Ferrer-Vidal Güell, Carlos Prado y Rubio,

Luis Portavella y Pavía, Santiago Trias y Rumeu, José Ciudad Ramírez and Luís Tomás

Moncusí. The object of the company was the construction and execution of all types ofworks plans, along the lines of Miró Trepat's traditional business. The articles talk ofbuildings, roads, ports and so on, but there is no mention of ships, as at that time there

were no plans for them.

The company was incorporated for an indefinite time with a share capital of 2,500,000

pesetas, with the Miró Trepat family holding a fifth of the shares. The Duke of Tovarwas appointed as chairman, while the post of managing director was filled by Joan MiróTrepat. At that time "Construcciones y Pavimentos S. 4". had its registered office of inMadrid, but its head office was in Barcelona, first at Carrer Pelai, 1 (Joan Miró Trepat'soffice) and later at Passeig de Gràcia, 80.

Around the middle of 1917, the compâny decided to branch out into the shipbuildingbusiness using the ferro-concrete technique. After making several enquiries and sendingpeople on training trips to France as well as obtaining sole licence rights for Spain from"Compagnie Bordelaise de Constructions Maritimes Modernes", it set about preparing thenecessary infrastructure.a The plan consisted in constructing and commissioning a

r'v ,r/ r

)1"-

208 Maritime Transport II

shipyard in Malgrat de Mar (to be more precise, on the border between Malgrat and Santa

Susanna) that would take up a large stretch of the beach. While the factory was under

construction, an experimental ship would be built in Barcelona to serye as a model for

those that would follow and as a training school for the company's worKorce that was

going to be making ships instead of houses.

4. TIIE MIROTRES

The experimental ship was eventually built on a site on the beach in Sant Adrià del Besòs

rhat is now part of tnã fnCSA power station complex. This ship was the biggest vessel of

its kind ever built in Spain up until that time. Indeed, the Mirotres, as it was called, was

the first ship in the Spanish merchant navy with a concrete hull and a petrol engine. Work

on it probably began in the latter part of 1917, but we do not know the exact date''

The object of building the Mirotres was to try out the technique and train the workforce

in howto use it with the idea that the experience acquired with this prototype would be

used in making ships of greater tonnage at the Malgrat factory which was then in the

middle of being built. As far as can be deduced from the surviving documentation, the

plans were based on a French model that was then slightly modified.

The name of the ship was taken from the Miró Trepat i Cia telegraph code. The craft was

34 metres in length, 7.30 metres in the beam and 3.50 metres in depth' It had a

displacement of ¿50 tonnes and could catry a maximum cargo of 300 tonnes' We also

know that the concrete hull was 5 centimetres thick, weighed 150 tonnes and was made

using Asland cement produced in Spain. The plans were drawn up by an engineer called J.

Capmany and given the highest possible rating, 100 + A, by the Bureau Veritas, proof that

it hãd passed uil th" strength testi and calculations.6

The ship's basic features can be seen in the surviving drawings: a fairly ugly bridge on the

bows, with a single cabin, two hatchways with concrete coamings, two masts supporting

auxiliary schooner rigging and the loading stanchions, etc.' It was actually a strange an

ugly strip, but for the eyes of her builders it was the pioneer of a new age in Spanish

shipbuilding.

Maritime Transport II 209

l;ì/cr.

Ir was launched on 15 August 1918 with Maria Antonia Miró Trepat (on behalf of Mary

Smith de Miró, wife of the company's managing director) and Joan Ferrer Vidal as

sponsors. But the ceremony did not go off very well. The ship had been built parallel to

tñe shore and was launched sideways. It had been resting on four wooden ways entering

the water with a gradient of lOVo.But no thought had been given to the fact that the seabed

might have been altered by the tides. As the ship was launched, the ways broke. As it did

noihuu" enough water under it, the hull was damaged (we don't know exactly how much),

thus preventing the ship from being taken to Barcelona at that time and frustrating the

üttle ìuting that had been planned. In spite of this, the shipbuilders considered that the

Mirotres hád passed the tesi with flying colours.s A few days later, on the afternoon of 20

August, the merchant ship was towed to Barcelona by the tlug Cataluña, where a Swedish

120 I{p semi-diesel Bolinìer engine and other equipment were fitted.e

Some probleÍìs arose later and the propeller had to be changed, as the one that came with

the engine did not work properly. On23 June 1919 the ship was put through its officialtrials ind managed to exceed the eight knots that were supposed to be its top speed''" The

Mirotres soon began sailing for the company that had built it.

unfortunately fhe Mirotes' career was extremely short-lived. on the night of 5 August

1920, as it was heading for Port Vendres and Cette with a cargo of 309 banels of wine

from Tarragona, it sank near Port Vendres, off Cap de I'Abeille, in a very dangerous

place. The captain, Carlos Roldan, dropped anchor off the beach of Tallalauca to avoid a

storm that had been battering it for hours and the ship ran aground about fifty metres from

270 Maritime Transport II

the coast. The captain and the 12 members of the crew left the ship. Four days later a tug,tbe Marius Chambon, a:rived from Marseilles to try to rescue it, but to no avail. Theship's cargo and equipment were salvaged, but the hull remained firrnly stranded. It is saidthat you can still see the remains there, a small beach frequented by nudists that doesn'tconnect this strange rocks with the wreck of a ship.l1

5. TIIE MALGRAT FACTORY12

The Mirotres had to be the flag ship of the shipyard. Meanwhile the ship began hersailing, the Malgrat shipyard began operating. It occupied a stretch of the shore 2,500metres long by 200 metres widel3 (or 250,000 m2 according to another version)l4 andemployed nearly a thousand workers. It had five slipways that ran a hundred mefies out tosea before reaching a depth of seven metres. The first batch of ships it was to makeconsisted of five 2,340 tonne vessels designed by the engineer Capmany. They were to be63.50 m long, 10.60 m wide and 5.75 m high.ls It was expected that with the factoryoperating at full capacity, it would take three and a half to four months to build a ship.

Although there are no reliable data available, it appears that work began on building threeships. There is a photograph of almost one of them in process. But in any case the workswere intemrpted when the factory was closed down in the 1920's .t6 Any was neverfinished in Malgrat. The installations of the shipyard were reconverted by"Construcciones y Pavimentos S.4." to build concrete beams and materials forconstruction indusûy almost until 1936. Today, nothing remains of the factory.Construcciones y Pavimentos S.A. continued operating in the building industry until itwas finally liquidated in 1943.17

6. EPILOGUE

The Spanish factory failed because the ferro-concrete shipbuilding had no place in thepost-war period. Soon after the end of the war, too fast for the Spanish hopes andexpectatives, the world's shipbuilding industry recovered its pulse in classical techniques,incorporating of course any advance gained during this bloody years.

Had the Spanish ferro-concrete experience any chance of succes? Not only"Construcciones y Pavimentos" but also the rest of the new Spanish shipbuildingchallenges give up in few years, incompetent to fight against the experienced factories inGreat Britain, France or even in a punished Germany.

Maritime Transport II 2t1

'të

: =-t¡ -'' t: o

:!z:::

The Second World War gave another opportunity to the ferro-concrete shipbuilding, but Idon't know any experience in Spain again. The memory of the Mirotres was absolutely

lost and her story was only an anecdote, a curiosity for those interested in Contemporary

Maritime History.

-f-{

2t2 Maritime Transport II

NOTES

1 For example, the S.S. Peralta was reconverted as a floating breakwater in Canada, and the S'S' San

Pascual is today a ten-room hotel in Cuba.t Viff- Ibíñez, José Eugenio. Embarcaciones porfuarias y de tráfico interior en los puertos de Bilbao y

Pasajes in 1¡sas. Revisla de Estudios Marítimos vascos,2, December 1998:412, s;;.urr of a deed executed before the Madrid-based notary Manuel de Bofarull de Palau' Details

takén from the Registre Mercantil de Barcelona (Barcelona Company Register). The relevant entry is in

"lome 177 of the companies book, sheet 14997 .

o La Prblicidad, I7 }.{.arch 1918.t ih" Ibéri"o magazine of 16 March 1918 carried an article signed by J. Capmany and dated 21 February

1918, illustrated with photographs of the ship under construction, which suggests that work had been

proceeding on it for at least a couple of months by then'6 La Publicidod, 18 August l9l8:27 In the Centre de DoJumentació Marítima - Museu Marítim de Barcelona (Maritime Documentation

Centre - Barcelona Maritime Museum) there is a report by the Barcelona-based photographer Brangulí

containing over 135 documents that covers the process of construction of the Mirotres as well as

including various plans, drawings and photographs of other concrete ships.t lo Publirídod, 18 August l9l8:2e Lo Pubticidad,21 August 1918: 8to Catalunya Marítima, 16, l9l9: 298.tt L'Indépendarrt, 11 August 192012 At present Carles Garriga is doing a research about the story of this factory at Malgrat',, péi.tRey, Juan. Buquei españoles de cemento armado in Navegación, 1' 25 November 1918

to La Publicidad, 17 March 1918.ttThegroondplanandcrosssectionoftheshiparereproducedinNavegación, l,25November1918'tu V*lior uuai,o.r. Malgrat dels nostres avls. Malgrat, no date: 283-90. In this book of photographs'

there are some photográphs of the factory. It is interesting to note that for many years there was a

concrete construction on ihat beach imitating a small ship which was built by Joan Viladevall i Forest and

used as a bar. It disappeared in the 1960s.1? Construccion", yÞìuim"ntos S. A. was wound up and put into liquidation as recorded in a document

executed by the Barcelona-based notary Cruz Usatorre y Gracia on 17 July 1943' In L947 a company

calìed J. Miró Trepat S.A. that was heir to it was set up with a share capital of one million pesetas

(Barcelona company Register, tome 1947 general, section 2, book 1354, sheet 1220)' The Board of

Direcrors included Ir¿arla CertruOis Schmitz, the widow of Joan Miró Trepat. J. Miró Trepat S.A' was

wound up in 1995.