Container vessels capacity

In the form that follows the cellular container vessel dimensions are input and her 20 ft TEUS capacity is estimated
This 2nd. edition fixing some errors and adding drawing of Containers in holds

Click to begin calculation

(updated on 21 Feb 2012)

"La Naval" shipyard of Sestao(Spain) launches the "Joseph Platou"

 "Fall-Pipe" type vessel for Jan de Nul

On August 3, 2012 "La Naval" shipyard, in Sestao (Spain), of the CNN group (Construcciones Navales del Norte =  Northen Shipbuilding) proceeded to launch this vessel for the Belgian shipowner Jan de Nul, a regular customer of this shipyard which has already delivered a twinship, "Simon Stevin", and several suction dredges, including the two largest in the world, in its class, "Cristobal Colón" and "Leiv Eiriksson". About these ships I already included posts  stressing their notability and the "La Naval" capacity to build such a high technology ships and competing worldwide with major shipbuilders .

The shipyard invited me to attend this launching, that I thanked especially in these times of shipbuilding drought , as evidenced by the absence of a keel laying after this launch, as was to be the norm in old good times when shipyards laid the keel of following ship waiting her turn in the queue of orders. I have news, unconfirmed, that "La Naval" will finish the construction of two medium-sized vessels begun in the late Seville shipyard, what will lead to an easing of shipyard situation in the absence of "serious" contracts, matched to its proven category and capacity. I hope that the "tax lease" system  resolves soon, after many months of stand-by, without which the shipyards in this country would have many difficulties to survive.

In this post about the "Simon Stevin", first ship of this series, I summarized the main features of this vessel whose dimensions are

Overall length (m)	191,50
Breadth (m)	40,00
Depth (m)	13,20
Draught loaded (m)	8,50
Deadweight (tonnes)	32.500
Speed (knots)	15,50
Crew	70
Propulsion
Azimuthal propellers	4 x 4.500 Kw
Retractable propellers	2 x 2.000 Kw
Electric generators	5 x 3.300 Kw

Delivery of "Joseph Platou" is scheduled for early next year.

I wish I had taken pictures and video of the launching from the other side of the river, but as I saw it from the guests platform visibility was very poor and I include here some photos of the event only as a recollection, nothing to be with quality.

Ship launching seen from the visitors platform

Which sails quicker the rowing boat "trainera" or "trainerilla" ?

The great mathematics magazine + Plus Magazine, in its May 2012 issue published an article entitled "Outer space: Canoeing and kayaking", authored by John D. Barrow, which raises the question of whether these boats run more or less when they double the crew, which we do not know in advance because if the propulsive power is doubled so does the displacement and therefore the hydrodynamic resistance.

+ Plus presents simple and reasonable equations to estimate the variation of this resistance and determine from it the necessary power increase, which compares with the increased power provided by the additional rowers. He gets a theoretical conclusion that  a double crew boat increases its speed by 8 to 10%, what matches well with the actual data recorded in kayacs and canoes races. This conclusion appears consistent with the intuitive impression we have that larger similar boats are faster than smaller ones. 

A new website about Naval Architecture

In the February issue of the Spanish journal Ingeniería Naval (Naval Architecture) they report the creation of a new website entitled "Revista del Sector Marítimo. Ingeniería Naval" (Journal of the Maritime Sector. Naval Architecture), whose stated aims are to "... encourage news update daily and flexibly, enabling readers to easily find news of interest through tags that allow you to select all news related to a topic."

This website is in this URL "Ingeniería Naval"

The journal editorial keeps saying they have tried that the new website be accessible from the largest possible number of devices in addition to PCs, such as tablets, already in operation, and smartphones, which will be soon.

Index of sections of the website is this

• Home
• Information
• Maritime news
• Maritime energies
• Magazines
• Subscription
• Reports
• Ships
• Applications
• Sitemap

The preceeding items are subdivided, in some cases, into lower levels and in particular, subscribers have access to the full contents of the journal "Ingeniería Naval" (Naval Architecture), on all its numbers since 2004 when the digital version was created, that is also handed over annually on a CD.

The inclusion of RSS allows you to add news to feeds readers and share them on social networks like Facebook and Twitter and to connect to the video channel of Naval Architects at Youtube.

I think that this site is very well presented with large and handy information and although it is currently a complement to "Ingeniería Naval" paper magazine edition, I think, is my opinion, that it will not be long until they retire the latter from the market, because, contrary to the opinion of some friends of mine, I think that although currently books and publications coexist in digital and paper formats, the very next generations will know the latter only in museums.

My congratulations to the AINE President, José Esteban Pérez Garcia and to the Journal Director, Belén García de Pablos, together with all their team, for the creation and promotion of this new publishing media, which I hope will help to reactivate the decayed shipbuilding situation in our country.

First and last aircraft carriers

The first one

By chance I found an online article (Ref.1) about the first aircraft carrier in naval history, i.e. the first ship on which an aircraft landed and took off. It was the cruiser Pennsylvania, of the U.S. Navy, and the first landing on its provisional flight deck occurred on January 18, 1911, in San Francisco, California, by a biplane aircraft Curtiss, piloted by Eugene B. Ely , a U.S. professional civil pilot.

Should cruise ships have a double hull ?

Considerations on the Costa Concordia accident

The recent accident involving the cruise ship Costa Concordia on the Italian coast of the Giglio Island is producing the usual questions that arise after any disaster affecting human lives. It is the question of whether the safety of the facility in question is sufficient, be it either a ship, aircraft, train, skyscraper etc. Clearly there is not a complete safety in any order of life, but it is also clear that any current safety level can be improved and the issue is deciding when and where the laws and regulations governing safety are to be changed to get better expectations.

History teaches us that mankind is learning the hard way. When we suffer a great accident is when we consider that perhaps safety provisions are not adequate and should be analyzed in detail and realism to decide whether they should be improved.

Ship lightweight Calculation

(In cargo ships preliminary design)

Introduction

The calculation of the ship lightweight and her center of gravity is one of the basic tasks to be performed in the ship initial design stage, where it is advisable to be able to perform quick, approximate calculations, allowing to quickly analyze many alternative dimensionings. In this blog I present a form to enter the main dimensions of a cargo ship from which the program computes, approximately, the ship lightweight and center of gravity height broken down in Steel, Equipment and Machinery. Results are limited to ships up to 320 m. length between perpendiculars and aspect ratios should be normal.

A  model of the frigate "Blas de Lezo"

by Juan Carlos Gorostiza

 In a former post on my blog "Oteando desde Getxo" (Scanning from Getxo), I presented some ship models manufactured by my friend Juan Carlos Gorostiza, which bind to the charm inherent to any ship model, the simplicity of the construction methods used by Juan Carlos, what makes doubly attractive the contemplation of his models with the awareness of his techniques. But note that simple methods do not mean this is an easy job, much less. In my opinion it is doubly worthy achieving so good results when the methods are so affordable.

Ship's hull form coefficients

(At preliminary merchant ship design)

Introduction

HELLO!

Herein I present a form to get basic hull form coefficients of merchant ships, following the formulae and concepts explained in Refs. 1 and 2, in order to serve as a guidance in the preliminary stage of a ship's design.

The main goal of this form is to get reasonable values of block (CB), midship section (CM) and loadline (CW) coefficients to be used in the different modules presented in the program Arqnaval, enclosed to the book Ref.2, and the program Getxonaval, being under construcion, to be used on-line via any browser, both intended to offer approximate and quick calculation methods in the preliminary stage of a ship design.

Some additional coefficients are also calculated and displayed in the enclosed form, of a lesser interest but that can also be of some utility.

Stability Calculation

(At preliminary stage of cargo ships design)

Introduction

Calculation of the stability is one of the basic and primary tasks that are to be done at the initial ship design stage, where it is not absolutely necessary to be quite exact, but where a quick calculation is very advisable, even if being approximate, allowing to analyze many alternative dimensionings in a short time. In this blog post I enclose a form where main cargo ship dimensions are to be input by the user and from them the program makes an approximate calculation and stability results are displayed for transverse metacentric height GM and righting levers GZ at several heeling angles.

Freeboard calculation

(At the ship design stage)

Introduction

Calculation of the freeboard is one of the basic and primaries that are to be done at the initial ship design stage, where it is not absolutely necesary to be quite exact. An approximate and quick calculation is therefore very suitable. After a brief concepts reminder I enclose a form where main ship dimensions are to be input by the user and freeboard results are displayed.

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.