Trans RINA, Vol 153, Part A1, Intl J Maritime Eng, 2011 Jan-Mar


name. The traditional DNC authored paper is mentioned, but his staff, who researched and wrote the bulk of the paper for the great man to polish and present, rarely got a mention. In today’s busy professional world, these latter rarely have the time to prepare papers on design, while their employers are less willing to disclose technical or commercial information. The effect has been that many naval architectural papers tend to be by academics and research students, all worthy but driven as much by ‘publish or perish’ as a desire to inform the profession, which has always been a key role of RINA.


C V Betts, FRINA, FREng, RCNC: This paper is an excellent,


thoughtful and valuable


successor to Barnaby’s Centenary paper. It is particularly useful to have a full review of the Institution’s past papers on ship design as such, enhanced by the author’s considered view on the future of ship design (a view with which I very much agree).


As the author says, it is a pity from the profession’s point of


view that national security considerations have


prevented papers being presented on the design of nuclear submarines. Their design is among the most interesting and demanding of the challenges faced by naval


architects and indeed by a number of other


branches of engineering. The excellent 1984 paper by Paul Wrobel on the design of the Royal Navy’s Type 2400 ‘conventional’ patrol class submarine gave a good idea of the general design process for a submarine but obviously was not concerned with the major implications of incorporating a nuclear power plant in a submarine. There were rumours some 20 years ago that a paper on the design of a Royal Navy nuclear submarine class had been prepared and even given initial security clearance but final clearance must have been withheld as the paper was never published. I sought and obtained clearance for an extremely brief description of the design of the VANGUARD Class Trident nuclear ballistic missile submarines, together with a brief mention of the ASTUTE class nuclear submarines, in my 1998 paper “The Royal Corps


of Naval Constructors Today”,


although fuller descriptions of some specific aspects of both designs have been published elsewhere. These days, of course, one can always refer to Wikipedia although accuracy should not be taken for granted!


The author makes an important general point about the Transactions of the Institution, embodied these days in the journals IJME and IJSCT. He points out that these no longer constitute the main source of technical papers on the practice of ship design. RINA itself does publish many papers on ship design but


the great majority of


these are published and marketed separately in the proceedings of the many excellent conferences and symposia sponsored by the Institution. One can, of course, identify and if desired order all such papers via the web. However, this is not nearly as convenient as in the past when all RINA papers were available in one set


of annual Transactions. With the welcome explosion in the number of papers, that is clearly no longer practical. Yet busy naval architects, designers in particular, may not always have the time to trawl the extensive RINA website


for papers that might be of use to them.


However, I do note that conference/symposia papers considered to be of particular interest and merit are occasionally republished in The Naval Architect. As an extension of this process, I would like to suggest that a selection of the most valuable papers on ship design given at RINA conferences and symposia be reproduced in the Transactions. Selection could be a matter for the Publications Committee, as an extension of the role they already have for deciding on potential candidates for Institution prizes. The author’s views on the sense, benefits and practicalities of this proposal would be welcome.


J J Hopman, Netherlands


Delft University of Technology,


I would like to congratulate David Andrews with his efforts to make a comprehensive overview of 150 years of developments in ship design. Although only based on the articles published in the RINA Transactions during this period it still provides a very good reading guide for a new generation of young naval architects who are interested in


their roots. By highlighting certain


developments and subjects presented in these 150 years and by categorizing these for the last 50 years in 7 different themes makes it easier to see how the view of ship design has changed.


I am missing, however, the 8th theme in his paper: the role of the naval architect. The position of the naval architect within the design team and his skills needed for successful ship design have changed a lot during the last 50 years due to the increase in number of different disciplines involved and in complexity of designs. Related to this is the increased need and interest in on how to manage these complex projects.


N Pattison, BAE Systems Surface Ships, UK


I would like to congratulate the author on an excellent paper which I found to be a very useful review of those papers and articles within the Transactions which relate to ship design. The coverage of papers published between 1860 and 1960 is a valuable distillation of the developments and designs generated during a period which is, I suspect, little understood and little appreciated by most Naval Architects practising today. The more in- depth assessment of the past 50 years is equally, if not more, instructive.


The author makes the point that ships “remain the largest manmade mobile environments” and this is an observation I whole heartedly agree with and together with the fact that so many ships “are bespoke” suggests to me that the enterprise of designing and building ships


©2011: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects


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