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Esso Gloucester Cristened & Launched
Published by the Shipyard Bulletin, volume XV, March-April 1953, No. 2.
By Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company.
The cover for this issue is a reproduction of a water-color painting by T.C. Skinner.
It shows the Esso Gloucester nearing an outfitting pier after her launching.
Thomas C. Skinner Jr. ( 1889 - 1955 )
A much more somber example of his work is the cover of the March/April 1953 issue of the Shipyard Bulletin. The flags on the yard tug HUNTINGTON and the incomplete Esso tanker were at half-mast; in memory of Skinner's brother-in-law, former shipyard president Homer L. Ferguson, who passed away on March 14, 1953.
Nevertheless, true to his passion for 'likeness', Skinner accurately included a number of now-obsolete features. Included are the hammerhead crane that once dominated the shipyard's skyline, a coal-burning C&O tug; NNS-built, of course. Less prominent but accurately depicted are the lines holding the tanker's aft launching cradle in place as she was being moved to an outfitting pier following her sliding launching.
Interestingly, this cover was the last one that Skinner ever produced for the Shipyard Bulletin. He became ill in early 1955, and on March 10th of that year, one of the country's foremost marine artists succumbed in Newport News.
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