Jim-- Good management of any building company (houses, boats, etc.) is to have your customers buy you the tools needed for increased production capacity. The big slipways and double gantry at H&W, for instance, should have been paid for by the Olympic class project. That way, H&W would have been in a better economic situation to bid on other ship construction--both large and small.
It is dangerous business to build something the size of the second Olympic Class slipway on the "if come." This sort of risk taking opens the company to potential bankruptcy resulting from a short-term economic slump that it otherwise might have survived. The best way is to embed the cost of expansion in current contracts--have the customer pay for the company's economic growth.
The logic behind this method of increasing capacity is the motivation for my suggestion that the two side-by-side gantries were intended to produce four ships over six years. That it did not happen was an accident of history. Not all human plans come to fruition. But, I cannot see H&W (or any other company) freely spending money on a second gantry and slipway if only three ships were to be constructed. A less-costly single slipway would have been just as efficient in terms of delivering the three completed ships. There was no economic benefit to either H&W or White Star to have two side-by-side building facilities for just three ships.
If only three ships were planned, then the cost of the second setup would have come directly out of H&W's money. White Star may have had a "cost plus" deal with the shipbuilder, but those costs were confined to the actual hulls delivered and not to the aggrandizement of H&W. White Star had to pay for the building of one gantry and slipway, else none of the ships could have been constructed. But, two gantries were not necessary as the second one would not have increased the speed of delivery of just three ships. It is only if four vessels were desired in the shortest possible time that the second gantry and slipway become a necessary expense within the White Star "cost plus" contract.
Once constructed, the second gantry and slipway was H&W's to do with as it pleased. There was nothing to prevent the company from working on other ships using those building facilities so long as it met the White Star contract regarding the Olympic Class ships. This would particularly have been true during the final phases of the contract when only one vessel remained to be completed.
-- David G. Brown
