This introduction to steel shipbuilding was prepared as a textbook for the shipbuilding classes of the Apprentice School of the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dy Dock Company. The course in shipbuilding at the Apprentice School is designed to give the student an understanding of the ship as a whole, to enable him to understand the relationship of the many shipyard trades to the finished vessel, and to form a basis for his future understanding of the marine industry.