An economical type large-scale laser coordinate automatic measuring system based on a portable laser rangefinder and a biaxial-turning-table was presented to measure large work pieces, such as ship bodies in the fields. The measurement principle and the main components of the system were introduced. Under the control of a computer, this system could complete automatic scanning measurement without a cooperative target, and also could get the relative coordinate data to the system of the target. The effects of main errors of the system on the measurement results were analyzed, and some experiments were performed to extract and calculate the main errors of this system. Finally, the laser tracker was used to evaluate the measurement accuracy of the distance between two points and to measure a ship body model. From the measuring experiments, it points out that the measurement accuracy of the distance between two points is better than 1.73 mm in 10 meters, and that of the distance between two parallel planes of the ship body model is better than 1.5 mm. These results indicate that the system is suitable for ship body automatic measurement because of its simple construction, low cost, high precision and a higher measuring speed(1 point/s).