Tuesday, December 27, 2011


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.






Sunday, November 27, 2011

Coeficientes de Formas

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.


Saturday, November 5, 2011

Stability Calculation


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.

Thursday, July 7, 2011




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.

Saturday, June 25, 2011


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.

Saturday, April 30, 2011

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).

Friday, April 8, 2011

¿ 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.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

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. 

Friday, March 11, 2011

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.

Friday, February 11, 2011

"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.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

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.


Monday, January 24, 2011

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.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

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.