Content area
Full text
Scott Truver's "Tomorrow's Fleet," (see September 1997 Proceedings. pages 90-96) discusses Navy plans to design advanced surface combatants for the 21st century-plans that hardly are revolutionary.
At the turn of the century, several warships already employed a turtleback hull form that incorporated severe tumblehome and a cutaway bow. The turtleback hull form soon disappeared because of inadequate seakeeping performance and limited reserve buoyancy. Subsequent generations of merchant ships and warships generally had conventional abovewaterline hull forms. From a seakeeping and powering standpoint, the best performing high-speed displacement hulls featured above-waterline hull flare, full waterplanes, good freeboard, and gently flared bows designed to keep the decks dry while minimizing the probability of flare slamming. For warships these design features also contributed to stability, survivability and, recently, stealth.
Nearly a century later, the Navy is procuring a Maritime Fire Support Demonstrator (MFSD) Ship, and one concept includes a wave-piercer hull form derived from an earlier high-speed monohull (HSM) design. The HSM hull form was developed to suit the specific requirements for a 1,500 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU), 32 knots-plus containership-not a warship. It reflected the unusual requirements of a niche commercial market that ultimately did not materialize. The HSM hull form has:
> An unusually low displacement-tolength ratio-48:4-reminiscent of pre-World War II, very high-speed destroyers
> An exceptionally slack, nearly Veeshaped midship section
> Disproportionately large bilge keels
> Relatively limited main-deck freeboard
> An exceedingly low angle-of-entry forward waterline
> An unimmersed, well shaped, narrow cruiser stern
A typical commercial ship-type bow bulb
> A conventional vertical profile bow with minimum flare A dramatically faired and shaped long and unusually deep forecastle
Except for its unique forecastle and bow bulb, the HSM hull form and hull proportions are similar to those of World War I four-pipe destroyers....