room – it seemed that it was 10 metres high! It was not a very nice situation to have in the middle of the Strait of Gibraltar. At the time steam turbines would drive the propeller via a huge condenser, which takes in water from the sea, and the cap of the condenser had blown off. Fortunately, the team managed to get the cap back in position and the vessel limped back into the harbour at 2-3 knots, towed by two tugs.” The experience didn’t deter Eduardo at all, but he admits it was certainly a dramatic start to his career.


Your projects have always been challenging and demanding, stretching our capabilities and planning. Can we take it as a compliment that you have always come back, even though there are basins nearer home?


“This is not a difficult question. If the European building industry was going to have a chance to survive, particularly for merchant ships, the only way was by developing new products and by meeting challenging demands.”


“For non-standard vessels and innovative solutions you need specialists. It is not possible to Google it. We need specialists and that this is what we found at MARIN! And indeed MARIN has the largest and most modern basins in the world. It is not a question of blind loyalty, we always consider it project by project. But when Astilleros Españoles and NAVANTIA had ‘unusual problems’ MARIN can find the solutions. We are often doing our work at the edge of technology and at the edge of our knowledge.”


During the last 30 years we have seen the start and growth of CFD techniques. NAVANTIA is experienced in CFD calculations. Why do you ask MARIN to perform these calculations as well?


“It is easy to carry out simulations now, with the computer power and tablets. A few decades ago it was not as simple. Thirty years ago there was nothing! Nothing! This was the start of the competition, or even I would say war between CFD and model tests - mathematical tools versus physical tools. It will be a very long war but the winner


is CFD here. Model basins will lose their positions. When the end of the story is finished, I don’t know.”


It sounds like you have doubts about the future role of model basin tests in light of CFD developments?


“When I came to MARIN HQ nearly 40 years ago we were in more open times, there wasn’t such tight security. You could walk into the workshop and see the ship models and their numbers and letters. Now you go to the workshop and it is only numbers! The optimisation is being done entirely by CFD, there aren’t so many modifications which saves a lot of time and money. ”


“Having said that, to run simulations it is vital to have powerful computers, and the tools needed to run simulations are not so easy to develop. Armed with a good CFD programme and a very powerful computer, we can run simulations and get results. But crucially, we have to learn how to interpret them and how to make the changes to improve performance. And for that you need experience and MARIN. We ask MARIN to


report 7


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