Cruising ships

An approximation to their dimensions

In my post of April 8, 2010 in this blog, entitled "Preliminary dimensioning of merchant ships," I included a procedure to calculate a first approximation of most significant particulars of 9 different merchant ship types, but I omitted a very important one, which is the passengers cruising vessel (hereinafter Cruising Vessel (CV)). One friend suggested me to extend the procedure to include the CV, because of the interest presently have these vessels, which are among the few that can successfully compete in Europe with eastern shipyards. Following this suggestion I have prepared a preliminary CV's dimensioning procedure, but I warn from just now that the data I base on have been obtained from Internet sites and some of them are not quite reliable, as I shall comment further on.

Estimating ship's powering 

L.K. Kupras' method 

At the initial stage of a ship's design a propulsion power estimation is to be done to ascertain that the vessel can sail at the specified speed. As the ship design development progresses, models tests are usually performed in a hydrodynamics tank, which serve to optimize the hull form, adjust the propeller(s) design and ensure the speed/power prediction for a proper choice of the propelling engine(s).

¿ How much does a ship weigh ?

Archimedes' principle

This question is deliberately ambiguous and what intends to ask is how can you get the weight of a ship, referring, of course, to a large ship, that can not be placed on a balance. It also refers to the weight of a real floating ship  already built and it is not considering here the weight estimation during the ship's design phase.

Safe Return to Port

Jaime Oliver's lecture in RINA

At the end of last February an international conference entitled "Design and operation of passenger ships" was held in London, at the RINA's headquarters (Royal Institution of Naval Architects), whose 52 lecturers from 10 countries developed, in 14 papers, a series of new ideas and thoughts on the development of ships technology. 

Ballast-free ships

In the realm of ships, ballast is a fixed or transitory weight that must be placed on board to solve or alleviate what I name " ballast-related problems" (BRPs), what means those problems that can fixed by using ballast. For example, BRPs are a poor ship's stability, insufficient or inadequate drafts, propeller(s) incomplete immersion, excessive ship movements at sea, etc.

"Begoña del Mar"

A new ship model from Juan Carlos Gorostiza

 A few days ago Guillermo Avanzini sent to me an information on the new model built by our mutual friend Juan Carlos Gorostiza, about whose wide and remarkable production I posted an entry in this blog here. 

This time it comes to  the ship  "Begoña del Mar", third  in a series that was built in the 60's for the Company Equimar Maritima and was built in Corbasa (Santander)  at 1970.

Classification Societies

 Public presentation of the José Antonio Reyero's book

 The Maritime Administration School of the Transport Department from the Basque Government held on 25 January an event entitled "The Classification Societies", whose central theme was the presentation of the book with the same name by author José Antonio Reyero, with a second part by Juan José Alonso Berástegui, which related a few brief memories of his experiences as a naval architect and as a director in Bilbao shipyards, where he met professionally with such a kind of organizations, and finally the meeting was closed by Luis Cañada Vicinay, President of the Basque Maritime Forum. The event was held at the auditorium of the Bilbao Maritime Museum.

Presentation: José Luis Trueba

The event began with an opening by the School of Maritime Administration Director, José Luis Trueba, followed by a welcome greeting by Bernabé Unda, Director of the Industry, Innovation, Trade and Tourism  Department in the Basque Government, and then the speakers proceed to present their respective contributions.

Triality: An innovative project of VLCC tanker 
 Accomplished by Det Norske Veritas (DNV)

In early December Classification Society DNV published a preliminary information on his new project, named Triality,  a VLCC size tanker (aprx. 300.000 TPM) embodying a number of features that show it as an innovative oil tanker, emphasizing its ecological character, non-polluting the environment, sea and air, all at a lower operating cost than a conventional tanker of same capacity.

A visit to ferry "Volcán del Teide" in Astilleros de Santander (Santander Shipyards)

On 28 December a group of friends were invited by Jaime Oliver to visit in Santander Shipyards, the ferry ship "Volcan del Teide", which at those days was being painted and finishing works before her delivery to her owner "Naviera Armas", so ending the construction of the vessel built  in Vigo's (Spain) H.J. Barreras.