Bath iron works – the US navy constructor

You probably wonder what Bath Iron Works represents. That is what I asked myself when I saw the title for the article. You would not regret if you read this article, I’m telling you this is a very interesting subject. Read this article until the end. Bath Iron Works, for short BIW is a big and important American shipyard, situated on the Kennebec River, in Bath, Maine, founded in 1884 and created to build commercial vessels, private vessels and military vessels, many of them were ordered by the United States Navy.


Probably the most important pieces of work of the BIW, who were also mostly designed by them are Battleships, cruises, frigates, destroyers. The Arleigh Burke class is one of the most advanced surface warship was also the creation of the shipyard.

A very important fact that has to be mentioned is that during the World War II the ships built at the Bath Iron Works had superior toughness than any other ships built at that time.

In 1995, the Bath Iron Works has become a subsidiary of General Dynamics, witch is the world’s fifth defense contractor.

The history of the creation of the Bath Iron Works is very interesting. General Thomas W Hyde who served in the American Civil War, born in Bath, Maine decided to buy a local shop who made windlasses and different iron hardware for the wooden ships who were built in the shipyards of Bath.

His business began locally and expended once with the improving of the practices by buying other local businesses. After 4 years of working in the field, Hyde saw the growing potential of a business that involved iron shipbuilding and decided to take his business into the next level and in 1884 it incorporated as Bath Iron Works. In 1890, Bath Iron Works signed his first contract for complete vessels, 2 iron gunboats for the beneficiary United States Navy. The first gunboat called Machias was the first ship launched by the Bath Iron Works.

Then the company built several yachts for different wealthy beneficiaries. In 1892, Bath Iron Works won another important contract, a commercial contract for building a 2.500 ton steel vessel, a passenger steamer called City of Lowell.

Between the years 1899 and 1904, the company built her own battleship, called Georgia, who dominated the yard. The Bath Iron Works based its activity on the contracts with the US Navy, in proportion of approximately 86%, from 1905 to 1917, the other activity of the company was based on producing trawlers, freighters and yachts. During the World War II between 1934 and 1944, the Bath Iron Works launched a destroyer at every 17 days.

The last commercial vessels built by BIW, were two tankers built in 1981 for Falcon Transport. The Bath Iron Works continued her prolific activity and during her many years of activity built a multitude of ships, like: lightvessels, Virginia class battleship, Chester class cruiser, Smith class destroyer, Paulding class destroyers, Cassin class destroyers, O’Brien class destroyers, Tucker class destroyer, Samson Class, Thetis class patrol boat, Farragut class destroyer, J class yacht Ranger, Mahan class destroyers, Spmers class destroyers, Sims class destroyers, Gleaves class destroyers.