SEE ALSO SHIPBUILDING

Men from Francisco de Orellana's expedition building a small brigantine, the San Pedro, to be used in the search for food.
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.
Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both commercial and military, are referred to as the "naval sector". The construction of boats is a similar activity called boat building.

History
Archaeological evidence indicates that humans arrived on New Guinea at least 60,000 years ago, probably by sea from Southeast Asia during an ice age period when the sea was lower and distances between islands shorter (See History of Papua New Guinea). The ancestors of Australian Aborigines and New Guineans went across the Lombok Strait to Sahul by boat over 50,000 years ago.

World shipbuilding industry in the 21st century
The global shipbuilding industry is currently dominated by South Korea, which is by far the world's largest shipbuilding nation. In spite of high labour costs, South Korea produced more ships in 2008 than the entire rest of the world's combined output. Its preeminence in the industry is largely due to advanced shipbuilding technology, and the high productivity and efficiency of South Korean shipyards.
For example, the world's largest shipyard in Ulsan, operated by Hyundai Heavy Industries, slips a newly-built, multi-million dollar vessel into the water every four working days. South Korea's "big three" shipbuilders, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Samsung Heavy Industries, and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, dominate global shipbuilding, with STX Shipbuilding, Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries, Hanjin Heavy Industries, and Sungdong Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering also ranking among the top ten shipbuilders in the world. In 2007, STX Shipbuilding further strengthened South Korea's dominant position in the industry by acquiring Aker Yards, the largest shipbuilding group in Europe. (The former Aker Yards was renamed STX Europe in 2008.)
China is a fast emerging shipbuilder that is poised to overtake South Korea in the distant future, although its current production is limited mainly to low-cost, basic vessels. Japan lost its leading position in the industry to South Korea in 2004, and its market share has since fallen sharply. The entire European countries' total market share has fallen to only a tenth of South Korea's, and the outputs of the United States and other countries have become negligible.

Modern shipbuilding manufacturing techniques
Modern shipbuilding makes considerable use of prefabricated sections. Entire multi-deck segments of the hull or superstructure will be built elsewhere in the yard, transported to the building dock or slipway, then lifted into place. This is known as "block construction". The most modern shipyards pre-install equipment, pipes, electrical cables, and any other components within the blocks, to minimize the effort needed to assemble or install components deep within the hull once it is welded together.
Ship design work, also called naval architecture, may be conducted using a ship model basin. Modern ships, since roughly 1940, have been produced almost exclusively of welded steel. Early welded steel ships used steels with inadequate fracture toughness, which resulted in some ships suffering catastrophic brittle fracture structural cracks (see problems of the Liberty ship). Since roughly 1950, specialized steels such as ABS Steels with good properties for ship construction have been used. Although it is commonly accepted that modern steel has eliminated brittle fracture in ships, some controversy still exists. Brittle fracture of modern vessels continues to occur from time to time as the use of grade A and grade B steel of unknown toughness or fracture appearance transition temperature (FATT) in way of ships' side shells can be less than adequate for all ambient conditions.