Page 13 - Practical Ship Design

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Even with this editing of individual chapters there remained a very real
possibility that there might be discrepancies between the chapters or that the
balance between them might not be altogether satisfactory - the former a thing
that years of specification writing has elevated to a capital sin in my mind. It was
therefore both a relief and a great pleasure when Allan Gilfillan, my colleague for
many years and a very distinguished naval architect, agreed to read the whole book
in draft. This was a major task involving very considerable time and effort and
resulted in a number of further corrections and improvements for which I would
wish to express my most sincere thanks. Finally, two distinguished naval architects,
who acted as referees for a possible publisher, suggested a number of helpful
changes which have now been incorporated to the benefit of the final text.
Having acknowledged all this most generously given assistance, I would wish
to absolve all the helpers of responsibility for any residual errors -indeed I would
rather like to “cover” myself also against any consequences which may stem from
any remaining errors (of which there must surely be some) by recommending that
users of this book should make their own checks on all data, approximate formulae
and rules given before they use them “in anger”. This is a policy that I can claim to
have followed throughout my career and it is one which has saved me from making
a number of errors that might have resulted from the use of data and/or formulae
which investigations showed to be less accurate than was claimed by their
protagonists !
A book or this sort would be a poor thing if it did not draw on many sources and I
would acknowledge that some parts of it almost take the form of an anthology and
would express my thanks to the authors of many technical papers from which
either text or illustrations have been drawn.
I have tried to obtain permission for all these quotations and think I have
acknowledged the source in every case but ask forgiveness if any permissions have
not been obtained or if any acknowledgements have been accidentally omitted.
It would be very helpful if any reader spotting an error would inform the
publishers so that a correction can be made should there be a later edition - one of
the joys of word processing being the ease with which such changes can be made.

David G.M. Watson

Publisher’s Note

Since the publication of this book the author, in recognition of his life’s work in
ship design, much of which is recorded in this book, was given an honorary degree
by the University of Glasgow and is now Dr. Watson, D.Eng.