Instructions for the Director of Naval Construction

Instructions

1. The Director of Naval Construction will be responsible to the Board for the efficient performance of the duties of his Department. he will be directly responsible to the Third Sea Lord for all matters of design, stability, strength of construction, and for the weights built into the hulls of ships and boats, including masting, torpedo, and electric light apparatus, and all nautical apparatus, whether building in the Dockyards or by contract; also for gun mountings and torpedo mountings to the extent that all questions relating to their introduction, changes of pattern, alteration, &c. will be referred to him by the Director of Naval Ordnance for his concurrence, before they are submitted to the Third Sea Lord. All drawings and specifications connected with ordnance and torpedo mountings are to be signed by him and the Director of Naval Ordnance.

2. The Director of Naval Construction is to submit to the Third Sea Lord all detailed plans affecting the stability, strength, speed, immersion, protection, arrangement of armament, fuel and ammunition services, fire control, ventilation, accommodation, navigating arrangements and generally all plans of importance affecting the qualities of the ship and her control. If the detailed plans affect in any way the qualities of the ship or entail any alteration in the design approved by the Board, a clear statement as to the effect of such alteration is to be made by the Director of Naval Construction when submitting them.

3. He and his representatives will visit and survey the various ships and the structural drawings in progress at the Dockyards and elsewhere, as he may consider necessary, to enable him to satisfy himself that the designs are being carried out in all their details to his satisfaction.

4. No alteration in or addition to the original designs of any ship as approved by the Board is to be made without the approval of the Third Sea Lord.

5. The Director of Naval Construction will be responsible for keeping the records of the matèriel of foreign navies.

6. The experimental works at Haslar will be under his direction.

7. The Director of Naval Construction will be jointly responsible with the Director of Naval Ordnance, for the design and manufacture of gun-mountings, and for the mechanical arrangements connected with the supply and fitting of torpedo apparatus, and electric lighting of ships or boats.

8. He will consult the Engineer-in-Chief in matters affecting the machinery to be fitted in ships projected or under construction.

9. The Director of Naval Construction and the members of his professional staff will devote all their time to the work of designing, to the supervision of designs, and to the performance of the duties indicated in paragraph 1, and in Appendix A. The Director of Naval Construction will have no responsibility for the administrative work of the sub-department of the Superintendent of Construction Accounts and Contract Work, and will not, therefore, be required to interfere in these details.

10. On the application of the Superintendent of Construction Accounts and of Contract Work, the Director of Naval Construction is to furnish him with such outline particulars of the weights of structure, weights and description of various kinds of armour, &c., proposed for new designs as may be sufficient to serve as the basis of financial provision to be submitted for approval, and for the preparation of schedules of instalments.

11. The Director of Naval Construction may sign correspondence with the Dockyards or other Admiralty Establishments at home and abroad, or with individual officers of H.M. Navy or Civil Service, on matters relating exclusively to the duties of his Department, but all correspondence communicating Board decisions, or relating to important questions of principle, or affecting other Departments, is to be in the name of the Board, and is to be signed by the Secretary.

12. Nothing contained in these instructions shall modify the direct responsibility of the Director of Naval Construction that the vessel realizes the intention of the design as approved by the Board, or the procedure which has been laid down by the Board with regard to the preparation of designs of H.M. Ships. A copy of thew Board Minutes prescribing the procedure to be followed is attached to the instructions (Appendix B).

By Command of Their Lordships,

W Graham Greene

Admiralty,

September, 1912.