Published Resources Details Journal Article
- Title
- Forty-knot speed ships
- In
- The Engineer
- Description of Work
- Letter to the Editor by J C Paulson
- Imprint
- vol. 61, 7 May 1886, p. 351
- Description
Accession No.127
- Abstract
The possibility of forty-knot ships was first raised in a paper present by C Hurst at a meeting of the Society of Junior Engineers, at Westminster in May 1886, Hurst maintained that the power introduced into steamers of light construction in order to obtain any required speed could not be determined by the old method of reckoning the resistance as being proportional to the midship section, but was to be ascertained by Resch's law, taking the actual speed and proportions of a first-class torpedo boat as a basis for comparison. According to Resch's law the speed attained by a model with any given power will illustrate the speed attainable in a larger vessel having the same proportion of power, the speed of the larger vessel being in all cases greater than that of the smaller in the proportion of the square root of the increased dimensions. The discussion that took place in a series of letters to the Editor extending over a period of four months was inconclusive as there was no way known at the time of building a boat fast enough to test the ideas being considered.