Source : Shipyard Bulletin Newport news Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company. ESSO CRISTOBAL LAUNCHED Mrs. john R. Suman, wife of one of the directors of the Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) christened our Hull 477 the Esso Cristobal on April 29, 1949, at 11:30 A.M. It is the third of ten 628-foot tankers we are building for that Company. Close-up view of superb pitching form of Mrs. John R. Sumun, us she christened ESSO CRISTOBAL. Picture was snappedj ust as boltle struck hull of vessel. This was the frst sliding launch from this semisubmerged shipway in more than four years, the last previous one having been that of the U. S. S. Baxer, our Hull 410, an Essex-class aircraft carrier, on December 15, 1944. This shipway was subsequently occupied for over a year by the hull of the aircraft carrier Iwo Jima, our Hull 447, later cancelled and scrapped. The vessels most recently launched from Shipway Eight were the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway tugs R.  Bowman and A. T. Lowmaster, our Hulls 467 and 468, which did not slide down the ways but were both floated from the outboard end of the shipway on February 24, 1948.     At 8:35 A.M. on November 13, 1948, the first bottom shell assembly for the Esso Cristobal was erected on Shipway Eight, this being the rnodern equivalent of the conventional “laying of the keel.” As in the case of the Esso Suez, our Hull 475, laid down four months earlier on Shipway Nine, Hull 477 was located well forward on the shipway, in order to reduce crane travel and handling of material from the north-and-south crane to the ship. The very moderate keel grade of 9/16” per foot was adopted for both vessels, instead of the customary 5/8”, to decrease height of blocking and staging forward, which in turn permitted greater working clearance [or the overhead cranes, and the sarne declivity was successfully utilized for the launching ways. The Esso Cristobal was on the stocks only 5-1/2” months, from keel-laying to launching, and was 95 per cent complete, structurally, when she left the ways.     The officials and distinguished guests who were with the sponsor. Mrs. John R. Surnan, on the launching stand, are identified in the captions of the photographs accompanying this article. ESSO CRISTOBAL is framed in structure of Shipway Eight as she becomes waterborne for the first time. Sponsor and group of distinguished guests at launching of ESSO CRISTOBAL. Left to right: Richard H. Sumun, son of the sponsor; Mrs. Eugene Holman, wife of the President, Standard Oil Company (New Jersey); Mrs. B. B. Howard, Mrs. J. B. Woodward, Jr.; M. G. Gamble, General Manager, Marine Department of the Owners; Mrs. John R. Sumun, Sponsor; B. B. Howard, and John R. Suman, directors in the owning company; Mrs. Richard H. Suman, and J. B. Woodward, Jr. ESSO CRISTOBAL (Hull 477) is christened by Mrs. John R. Sumun on April 29, 1949. ESSO CRISTOBAL (Hull 477), looking from bow to the midships. ( Thanks to S. Dale Hargrave )