Shipyard Soundscapes
Sounds of the Shipyard
Shipyard Workshop list and Tours
These sound collages are made primarily from historical recordings, mixed industrial and maritime sounds.
Commissioning ceremonies for the USS Horne and USS Mahan
The Work of the Shipyard
These sound collages are made primarily from historical recordings from the Navy Archives (marching band music, speeches at commissioning ceremonies and organisational meetings), mixed with other industrial and maritime sounds, some from online sources such as Freesound.org (see credits below) and from sound artist Evelyn Ficarra’s own collection of recordings. The aim is to create an imaginative sketch of the sound of Hunters Point back when it was an active shipyard.
Text for Shipyard Sound Description
This description of sounds of the shipyard is from a script for a tour of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard to visitors who had never been on the shipyard site before. Such tours had various purposes such as: enlisted men and officers arriving with their ship to be repaired or overhauled at HPS; a VIP Navy Brass bus tour of the yard and facilities; a pitch to VIP’s to keep the yard open in the 1970’s. Tours were given to keep the shipyard in the forefront of various people’s minds, in an attempt to keep it open as the last large industrial employer in San Francisco in the early 1970’s.
Although there is no way to tell for sure in which context this description was used, our historian Stacey Carter suspects it was for a group of VIP’s – either Navy Brass or delegates from another country. Date appears to be 1971.
