Ship building has advanced so that ships of a wide variety of shapes can be built, like Swath and Seaknife. I start this tread to gather discussions on the merits and demerits of ship configurations for specific purposes.
My first subject is inspired by a description of a video showing Kuznetsov sailing stolidly through a storm while an attending Udaloy looked most unhappy.
If a tricat destroyer has a long, thin main hull with a large draft and pretty long and thin side hulls with equally large draft she can have hydrofoils spanning from the side hulls to the main hull fore and aft. These hydrofoils will be in water that is less subject to wave action, so the movement of the ship is damped. They might even contribute, a little, to propulsion, compensating, also a little, for the larger wetted surface and increased friction drag. At high speed the wave drag should be smaller than for a conventional hull. The electric motors and propellers are mounted one each under each hull, giving a higher propulsive efficiency than with two or more propellers under a monohull. Together this reduces the power required and thus the cost of the power plant for a given design speed.
The new shape would provide a wide and stable platform for operating helicopters. It might also be possible to mount runways, with ski jump, over one or both of the side hulls to launch and recover small unmanned aircraft or even to operate manned communication aircraft with a shape similar to Facetmobil, i.e. with a very low aspect ratio.
I'd love to see your comments.
My first subject is inspired by a description of a video showing Kuznetsov sailing stolidly through a storm while an attending Udaloy looked most unhappy.
If a tricat destroyer has a long, thin main hull with a large draft and pretty long and thin side hulls with equally large draft she can have hydrofoils spanning from the side hulls to the main hull fore and aft. These hydrofoils will be in water that is less subject to wave action, so the movement of the ship is damped. They might even contribute, a little, to propulsion, compensating, also a little, for the larger wetted surface and increased friction drag. At high speed the wave drag should be smaller than for a conventional hull. The electric motors and propellers are mounted one each under each hull, giving a higher propulsive efficiency than with two or more propellers under a monohull. Together this reduces the power required and thus the cost of the power plant for a given design speed.
The new shape would provide a wide and stable platform for operating helicopters. It might also be possible to mount runways, with ski jump, over one or both of the side hulls to launch and recover small unmanned aircraft or even to operate manned communication aircraft with a shape similar to Facetmobil, i.e. with a very low aspect ratio.
I'd love to see your comments.