Trans RINA, Vol 152, Part A2, Intl J Maritime Eng, Apr-Jun 2010
fo’c’stle location to the slightly more kindly poop, with 2-3 berth cabins, and finally to amidships with “modern” galley arrangements. The naval design papers, largely in published in 1947, covered the full range of new vessels, from R Baker’s astonishing variety in “Ships of the Invasion Fleet” and “Development of Landing Craft” through Watson’s “Corvettes & Frigates”, W Holt’s “Coastal Force Design”, H Skinner’s “Depot & Repairships” and Dr Todd’s “Experiments for the Mulberry Harbour” together with M Purvis’ “Craft & Cable Ships for PLUTO” and C Merrington’s “Ship repairing and Shipyard Problems in the Invasion of Europe”. The latter papers demonstrated the immense technical efforts in the naval contribution to liberating Europe. There were also A Sims’ 1945 “Habitability of ships under wartime conditions”, which stressed the need to meet conditions from the Artic to the Tropics, N Holt & Clemitson’s 1949 “Notes on the behaviour of HM Ships During the War”, subsequently drawn on for the excellent seakeeping features of the post-war fleet, and J Daniel’s “The Royal Navy
and Nuclear Power”,
introducing another radically new propulsion technology. Submarines were covered by Sims in 1949 and A Starks on “German U-boat Design and Construction”, while Dr Parkes, appropriately as a naval historian, drew down almost a century of battleships, in 1949, with “German and Japanese
criticisms of his battleship designers.
Battleships”, but not without observations
some from actual British
The ship design papers in the last decade of Barnaby’s review are at last dominated by the non military with the only ‘naval
ship design’ presented being Sir V
Shepheard’s 1954 “HMY Britannia”, a comprehensive paper, actually drawn on nearly forty years later for the design studies of its not-to-be replacement. The other two naval papers were post war reviews: Captain James USN in 1951 on “US Fleet Maintenance & Battle Damage repairs in the Pacific “ and in 1953 Admiral Fisher’s “Fleet Train in the Pacific War”,
which further
demonstrated the widening scope of naval ship design with the demise of “Big Gun Fleets”. Cargo ship design figured significantly from 1952 with Sir E Ayre’s “Merchant Ship Design”, looking at future trends in speed, cargo handling and machinery types, and W Dickie’s
“High speed single
and the second paper which described such vessels “Built Abroad” – a less welcome vision of the rapidly declining future
for British merchant
shipbuilding. New types
started in 1951 with a strange proposal by Professor Jaeger & Schokker, “A Proposed design for a combined research, training and cargo ship”. More radical was Commander Du Cane’s 1956 “Planing Performance, Pressures and Stresses in a High Speed Launch”, welcomed in an area where most of the research had been extensively published in the USA, and also P Crewe’s 1958 “The Hydrofoil Boat, Its History and Future Prospects”. Finally, J Campbell’s “Train & Car Ferries” reflected another future growth area in RO-RO vessels both for the Cross Channel trade and beyond, with Baltic and Canadian routes also being covered. The insights from outside the profession included the marine artist L Dunn’s 1958 “Merchant Ship Design; Some Aesthetic Considerations”, which still bears worth reading for the principles, even if fashion has moved on.
4. SHIP DESIGN 1960 TO 2010 Without
the benefit of Barnaby, ‘though with a
subsequent check on the similarly sequentially organised two decade review by R N Newton [5], the current author has trawled the last 50 years of the Transactions to highlight the ship design papers. These have included a lot of specific designs (naval and merchant), as in the previous 100 years, but
also, with the advent power of computers has enabled of
electronic computers, papers on the ship design process, a topic not previously addressed directly. While the analytical
naval
architects to tackle, in a more scientific manner, what still remains challenging as an exceedingly complex set of physical phenomena that constitute the behaviour of a ship in a seaway, the use of the computer for designing new ships has changed that process out of all recognition.
screw cargo liners”,
describing eight new Blue Funnel ships, which were then compared by S Smith with P&O’s “S” Class variants with, twin screw diesels versus single screw steam propulsion plant. In 1956 Dr Corlett discussed “On the Design of Economic Tramp Ships” to be followed two years later by Dr Gebbie on “Evolution of the cargo ship during the last 35 years - ‘some thoughts on the future’”. However, by 1959 the writing was on the wall as was clearly indicated by the American author D Argyriadis in “Cargo Container Ships”, although that author foresaw infrastructure difficulties, which were to be met by container terminals on a scale inconceivable at the time. Other changes were indicated by two 1957 papers: the first on Iron Ore Carriers (J Lenaghan & R Atkinson)
The other thing that needs to be said in regard to the professional dissemination of ship design practice, in an increasingly international profession, is that the Transactions of the (now) Royal Institution (together with its American cousin’s SNAME Transactions) no longer constitute the main sources of technical papers on the practice of ship design – or should it now be marine or maritime design? It would be invidious to try to mention all the major marine technology journals that now, to various degrees, publish technical papers on the nature and practice of ship design. In addition there are also both the standing international conferences, such as International Marine Design Conference (IMDC) and Practical Research And Design of Ships (PRADS) and the more specific International Conference on Computer Applications to Ships (ICCAS - very heavily CAD and CAM focused), and the many specific conference and symposia proceedings, particularly those published by the Institution, usually separately from the Transactions. The latter RINA conferences range from addressing one off issues, such as bulk carriers (1998) and new vessels (e.g. Trimarans (2000)), to frequent topics, such as
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©2010: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects
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