Page 8 - Practical Ship Design

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Foreword

We have in this book a distillation of the wisdom and knowledge acquired from the
lifetime’s work of a successful ship designer. Shining through it comes the author’s
obvious concern to hand on the fruits of his long and wide experience for the
benefit of others. The reader cannot fail to be impressed by the scope of the subject
as presented, and by the meticulous care taken to cover every aspect of ship design.
The book deals with merchant ships and naval ships. It is not often that both of
these are dealt with by one author, let alone handled with such authority. There is
coverage of cargo ships and passenger ships, right on to tugs and dredgers and
other service craft. There is concept design, leading on through detail design, to the
study of the effect of regulations, the preparation of specifications, and on to
matters of cost and economics. There is structural design and hydrodynamic
design. No aspect of design has been left out.
Because the Author’s span of working years closely paralleled my own, I can
appreciate how all the changes in ship design and operation during those exciting
years have been enjoyed by him; and I can only admire the way he has recorded,
not just the outcome of these changes as they affect ship design, but also the
reasoning behind the changes. It is the latter that means so much to the seriously
enquiring reader. No doubt we all feel that our own little sector of personal history
is the most significant ever, but I think the Author would agree that more has
happened on the maritime scene in the years since World War 2, a period which
covered our working lives, than in all the preceding centuries. It was so because of
the ever growing demand for commercial activities at sea. Matched against that
demand has been the greater ability to meet the design requirements, and that has
been made possible by having more knowledge and better means of handling it.
The Author is genuinely competent to write on Practical Ship Design because of
his long history in the actual business. Today there are very many people ready to
discourse on design. “Design” has become a subject in its own right. But the