Onboard speed-power management – a "feel good" solution?

Miscellaneous Musings from the Technical Director
Here’s my contention:
onboard speed-power management (SPM) systems are nothing more than a “feel-good” solution for a problem that doesn’t exist.
OK, now that I have that out of the way, let me fill in some details…
A problem that doesn’t exist?
What is a problem? Dictionaries define it as “a question proposed [...]

Time trial racing – deep water versus shallow water

Miscellaneous Musings from the Technical Director
I received an interesting email yesterday, and I thought I would share my reply with our blog readers. It comes from a speed record holder “kite surfer”.

In the world of speed sailing, kite surfers can sail in very shallow water (down to less than 10 cm), which gives us very [...]

New "Marine Performance Technology Exchange" posted

You can download our latest issue of the Marine Performance Technology Exchange from the Knowledge Library on our web site. The principal article is about the “Contribution of a nozzle in ducted propeller performance”. Just look for the November 2008 issue.

Revolutionary new fuel saving strategy

Miscellaneous Musings from the Technical Director
Stop the press! I was reading a new trade journal at lunch and nearly choked on my chicken kabob… Right in front of me was a story about a new fuel savings strategy that has the potential to revolutionize maritime vessel operation.
Let me read you the headline and the [...]

Qualitative behavior: KISS me

Miscellaneous Musings from the Technical Director
Which would you rather have – a weather report that was perfectly correct 80% of the time and completely wrong the remaining 20%, or one that was exactly opposite 100% of the time. How about a hydrodynamic code that was within 5% for most of your hulls,  but had the [...]

Neural nets and genetic algorithms

Miscellaneous Musings from the Technical Director
I received an email from one of our software customers mentioning a new technical paper about the use of neural network (NN) techniques for the prediction of residuary resistance. This is something that I have discussed in a past blog article (Top Ten Prognostications for 2007), and that we have [...]