Word: fukuyama
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Hull Trick. Completed three years ago in less than 20 months on land reclaimed from Ise Bay, the yard was designed to build two huge ships at the same time with a minimum of manpower. Steel plates are delivered by sea from Nippon Kokan's Fukuyama steelworks 300 miles away and fed into a computer-controlled process in which they are marked, cut, shaped and welded into major hull blocks. Two giant cranes that straddle the building dock then lift these components into place, and they are welded to the hull-again mostly by an automatic process. Another labor...