"90-day gunboats"...

5fish

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In the early days of our civil war, the union navy needed ships that where ocean-worthy with a shallow draft for coastal portals... Unadilla class ship was born...

The Unadilla class was a class of gunboat built for the Union Navy at the outbreak of the American Civil War. Ships of the class were also known as "90-day gunboats" due to their rapid construction. The class was designed to be fully oceangoing while having a light enough draft to be able to operate close inshore, for blockade duty or other operations in shallow waters.

Unadilla-class gunboats took part in many coastal and river operations, most notably as the bulk of the fleet which captured the vital Confederate port of New Orleans in April 1862. As blockade ships, the 23 vessels of the class captured or destroyed no fewer than 146 enemy blockade runners during the war— about 10 percent of the total number of Confederate blockade runners so neutralized.

The Unadilla class was sold off quickly by the Navy at the end of the war, most of them going into merchant service. Little is known about their subsequent careers
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The first vessel of the class, Unadilla, was launched on 17 August 1861, barely two months after the signing of the contract. The rest rapidly followed, with another three being launched in August, four in September, fourteen in October and the last one, Penobscot, in November.[3][4] Unadilla was again first to be commissioned, on 30 September, just 93 days after the laying of her keel.[9] A total of eleven were commissioned before the end of the year, and another eleven by February 1862. Marblehead was the last ship of the class to enter commission, on 8 March.[3][4]

Though popularly known as the "90-day gunboats" then, only the first four vessels of the class were commissioned in anything like 90 days.[3][4] The rest took an average of about three months just to launch. Overall, the ships averaged a little under six months from signing of the contract to commission.

Here is a link to the list of them and more details...
Unadilla-class gunboat - Wikipedia

Another link:

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https://www.navalhistory.org/2018/11/28/unadilla-class-gunboats

This made me wonder: why, if the Unadilla-class was successful during the war, would the Navy allow the class to essentially go extinct? After doing some more digging, the main reasons I saw for the Unadilla-class’s undoing was the design of the vessel. The hulls of the 90-day gunboats were mainly made of wood, with iron braces only used to support and strengthen the wooden structure. Unfortunately, the success of modern artillery pieces against wooden hulls proved that iron and steel was the way of the future, and to keep outdated equipment would weaken the overall strength of the Navy.

If the wooden hull was the Achilles’ heel of the Unadilla-class, the weight of its machinery was the death knell. As with most Isherwood-designed vessels, the engines of these gunboats were more than two times the necessary weight. This hindered the gunboats’ performance immensely, especially in regards to the main purpose of their creation: to act as a blockade. While most blockade runners could reach speeds of up to 14 knots, the Unadilla-class was lucky if they could get up to 10 knots, making it near impossible for the Union ships to catch their targets.
 

5fish

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WW2 gave us another 90 day wonder... Liberty ships...Liberty ship - Wikipedia

Liberty ships were a class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II. Though British in concept, the design was adapted by the United States for its simple, low-cost construction.[4] Mass-produced on an unprecedented scale, the Liberty ship came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. The class was developed to meet British orders for transports to replace ships that had been lost. Eighteen American shipyards built 2,710 Liberty ships between 1941 and 1945 (an average of three ships every two days), easily the largest number of ships ever produced to a single design. Their production mirrored (albeit on a much larger scale) the manufacture of "Hog Islander" and similar standardized ship types during World War I. The immensity of the effort, the number of ships built, the role of female workers in their construction, and the survival of some far longer than their original five-year design life combine to make them the subject of much continued interest.

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The ships are constructed of sections that were welded together. This is similar to the technique used by Palmer's at Jarrow, northeast England, but substitutes welding for riveting. Riveted ships took several months to construct. The work force was newly trained — no one ever previously built welded ships. As America entered the war, the shipbuilding yards employed women, to replace men who were enlisting in the armed forces.[

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The ships initially had a poor public image due to their appearance. In a speech announcing the emergency shipbuilding program President Franklin D. Roosevelt had referred to the ship as "a dreadful looking object", and Time magazine called it an "Ugly Duckling". 27 September 1941, was dubbed Liberty Fleet Day to try to assuage public opinion, as the first 14 "Emergency" vessels were launched that day. The first of these was SS Patrick Henry, launched by President Roosevelt. In remarks at the launch ceremony, FDR cited Patrick Henry's 1775 speech that finished "Give me liberty or give me death". Roosevelt said that this new class of ships would bring liberty to Europe, which gave rise to the name Liberty ship.

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The first ships required about 230 days to build (Patrick Henry took 244 days), but the average eventually dropped to 42 days. The record was set by SS Robert E. Peary, which was launched 4 days and 151⁄2 hours after the keel was laid, although this publicity stunt was not repeated: in fact much fitting-out and other work remained to be done after the Peary was launched. The ships were made assembly-line style, from prefabricated sections. In 1943, three Liberty ships were completed daily. They were usually named after famous Americans, starting with the signatories of the Declaration of Independence. In the 1940s, 17 of the Liberty Ships were named in honor of outstanding African-Americans. The first, in honor of Booker T. Washington, was christened by Marian Anderson in 1942, and the SS Harriet Tubman, recognizing the only woman on the list, was christened on 3 June 1944.[12
 

Wehrkraftzersetzer

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I thought that somebody would get his ship kitted by the US Navy, have 90 of "war" & could sail away to be a pirat
 
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