Owners Requirements & the Formulation of the Design

 Introduction

A design begins with the preparation of a set of "Owner's Requirements" for a merchant ship or
"Staff Requirements" for a warship. In general the stages leading up to the request for a new
design are the same for merchant ships as for warships with the important difference that
warships are built for a government whereas merchant ships are normally built for a private
owner. The preparation of these requirements, especially for merchant ships, remains an inexact
science. It is based on future expectation of demand in the trade under consideration and chance
is often as likely to make the forecast correct as foresight.

In commercial ship design the demand for a new design usually originates with the chief
executive responsible for the operation of a company's ships. From information which becomes
available on such matters as the economics of operating the existing fleet, the state of their part
of the shipping market, developments in international trade etc, he/she arrives at the conclusion
that new ships are required either now or very shortly for the satisfactory conduct of the
business. With the aid of his/her staff, sometimes supplemented by technical advice from a naval
architecture consultancy, he/she arrives at the operating characteristics of the proposed ships and
the number required. These characteristics will be set out in the form of a statement of
requirements which will form the basis of the preliminary design.

Once the Requirements are drawn up the Naval Architect can start to prepare a preliminary
design which aims to fix displacement, main dimensions, powering, an outline arrangement and
specification. An owner’s naval architect, a consultant or a shipbuilder may carry out this stage
of the process. If the ship owner is happy with the design it may be put out to tender - offered to
a number of shipbuilders - or simply given to a preferred shipbuilder for costing. Once the cost is
agreed the builder will progress the design to produce a package of manufacturing information
which suits his building methods.
  Marine Transport.

Ships are designed, built, and operated, to fulfill certain requirements and limitations
stipulated by the operator and known to the profession as “Owners Requirements". This is a
familiar term to those engaged in design work and denotes the basic considerations under lying
the economics of marine transportation. Transportation by canal, river, lake, or sea for short or
long hauls is a comparatively low-cost method of conveyance, hence one reason for an efficient
peacetime merchant marine. Water-borne commerce, being an essential factor to our national
security, offers a great competitive challenge to the shipbuilding and ship operating industries to
provide the cheapest and best designs for all marine services.
Trade route, port facilities, class and quantity of cargo, speed, hotel service and
accommodations are the primary factors which govern ship design. Therefore, there are many
different classes of water-borne carriers; e.g., general cargo, cargo and passenger, passenger and
cargo passenger, ore, collier, tanker, grain, lumber, banana, frozen meat, chilled meat, sea train,
trailer, and many others.

Owner’s Requirements.

The “Owner’s Requirements” are the desired fundamentals which are provided by the
operator for the shipbuilder to set in motion the creation of a design. The united effort of the skill
and ingenuity of hull and engineering design staffs is now brought into play to produce an
answer to a complex engineering problem. This is no mean task to accomplish and, generally
speaking, some compromise is necessary to satisfy all aspects of the desired requirements, such
as deadweight, speed, route, cruising radius, classes of cargo, number of passengers, etc.
The designer’s primary aim is to produce a vessel which will fulfilled the stipulated
requirements and pay dividends to the owner. The optimum results are attained by the happy
combination of reasonable first cost combined with good operating economy.
The “Owner’s Requirements” will immediately establish which of the four fundamental
types of ships is to be designed i.e., cargo, passenger, cargo-passenger (intermediate), or tanker:
These classes of vessels can he broken down further into the basic types as characterized by the
super structure on the hull. Again, the “requirements” usually will stipulate what is desired, but
there are cases where some investigation is necessary to determine which type is the most
satisfactory for the intended service.

The practice followed by owners in stating their requirements for a new ship varies widely and
statements ofrequirements can range between the briefest outline and the most detailed
specification (sometimes so restrictive as apparently leaving the ship designer little
scope to apply his/her skills). The most forward looking owners will have based their

requirements on a careful analysis of their needs or on market research but this cannot always be
taken for granted. Ideally, the requirements should lay down what the owner wants in the
following categories, namely, the performance, availability and utility of the ship; it would
also be helpful for an opinion to be included on the aspect of cost.

The Performance category includes such aspects as: -

 Amount and type of cargo to be carried

 How the cargo is to be handled

 Turn-round times
 Trade Routes and Trading Pattern
 Ship Speed required at sea
 Distance between fuelling and storing ports

The Availability category includes such aspects as: -

 Maintenance Policy - How much afloat?
 How much ashore?
 Standard or Extended periods between Dockings?
 What emphasis is to be placed on reliability - is any redundancy required in machinery
and systems?
The evaluation of availability is a recent development in the field of shipping and requires access
to a database ofinformation on the performance ofmachinery, systems and equipment already at
sea in ships. Although few shipowners or shipbuilders have such information, it is clear that

improved reliability is an essential step in maintaining an economic and competitive fleet.

The Utility category includes such aspects as: -

 Flexibility - ability to change role as in the O.B.O. (Oil-Bulk-Ore) or Ro-Ro Ship
 Ability to load/discharge cargo using on-board equipment
 Ability to use canals or waterways without restriction

The Cost category includes the aspects of: -

 Initial Cost
 Running Costs
 Maintenance Costs
 Finance
 Depreciation

All of these form part of the Life-cycle Cost and a common overall objective is to reduce them to a
minimum consistent with meeting the Performance, Availability and Utility requirements.

The fundamental explicit requirements which should be addressed in preliminary design are: -
 Cargo Deadweight
 Cargo Capacity
 Speed at Sea
 Endurance
The first two are related by the Cargo Stowage Factor = Cargo Capacity/Cargo Deadweight,
and together they fix the type of ship that must be used.

Stability and Safety are requirements which must also be addressed during preliminary design.
They are traditionally regarded as being implicit to the process - whatever choice the owner makes
about Deadweight or Speed he/she wants the ship to survive for a reasonable length of economic
life and no-one deliberately designs an unsafe ship. However, public concern is leading to a greater
pressure for these to become explicit requirements as well.

Choice of Type.

In the design of a cargo carrier, one has a wide choice in the selection of type ranging
from the flush-deck vessel with no superstructure to the complete superstructure vessel. Each has
its advantages, and the one which comes nearest to fulfilling the requirements will be used.
There can be a considerable variation in topside silhouette ranging from a forecastle
only, combined bridge and forecastle, bridge only, combined bridge and poop, or poop
only, to the familiar “three-island type’ with poop, bridge, and fore castle. All of this class
are suitable for heavy cargoes, or maximum displacement and dead weight. The complete
superstructure type, familiarly known as the shelter decker,” is readily identified by the presence
of one or more tonnage openings in the weather deck, and is suitable for trades involving light,
voluminous cargoes. Intermediate cargo- passenger and passenger vessels, for all practical
purposes; belong to the shelter deck type. Their superstructures are usually extended upward for
one or more tiers, as necessary, but this extension has no influence on permissible draft as no
allowance is provided in the Load Line Regulations for more than one tier of supersA
superstructure in this text is that defined by and is any extension of the side shell upward to one
deck level immediately above the freeboard deck which influences draft in relation to the extent
of length of superstructure enclosing the freeboard deck. The freeboard deck is the weather deck
for all flush deck and partial super structure vessels except that it is the first deck below the
weather deck for complete superstructure vessels.
It can happen that the owner’s subdivision requirements will determine the freeboard
when the latter exceeds the statutory requirements noted above. Ship A in Table I is an example
of this condition. Passenger vessels are also examples where freeboard is often determined by
sub division and damage stability requirements rather than by the extent of the superstructure.
Selection of Prototype Ship.

A fundamental requirement for preliminary basic design is reliable data from

existing ships and most design establishments have this information available and recorded
to suit their own preference and general procedure. Specialization and standardization,
based on voluminous data, tend to simplify basic design to a minimum of effort and are
practiced to a considerable extent by some ship-builders for various categories of floating
equipment. The scope of procedure can encompass tankers, dredgers, Lakers, yachts,
trawlers, coasters, tugs, barges, and other special craft for example. Care and sound
judgment should be exercised in the use of all such data and it should be used only for
rough first approximations or as an approximate check on detailed calculations.
In the selection of suitable dimensions for a particular design, recourse to final data from
a completed prototype nearest to the desired characteristics is common and straightforward
practice. The following text is written on this premise and in this way an experienced designer
can deter mine within reasonably close limits the probable dimensions which will best satisfy the
desired basic requirements.

Deadweight or Volume?
Seawater has a stowage factor of 0.9754 m3/tonne. A minimum reserve of buoyancy is
required when laden. Hence the least overall stowage factor for a ship i.e. Total Enclosed
Volume/Displacement is about 1.5 m3/tonne. The separate stowage factors for cargo and the
remainder of the ship are close to this figure. Hence if the cargo to be carried is more dense than
(stows closer than) this figure then empty space in the hold is inevitable. Many cargoes fall into
this category. They range from ore at 0.5 m3/tonne to oil at about 1.25 m3/tonne. The empty
space can be put to some use as it allows the cargo to be distributed within the ship in such a way
as to minimise problems of strength and stability and perhaps segregate cargo and ballast spaces.
However convenience in working cargo may demand that it be concentrated and the strength
advantages can be lost. If draught is restricted but economy of scale demands a large ship and
depth remains proportional to length because of strength considerations then spare space will be
automatic.
In the normal manner however as the average cargo density decreases the ship will become full
and down with cargo stowing at about 1.6 m /tonne. If the cargo density is so low that the vessel
has unused deadweight remaining then deck cargo could be carried but it would not be protected
from the weather or the sea. This is where the container ship demonstrates one of its advantages -
its deck cargo is reasonably well protected because it is inside a container. The modem bulk
cargo ships- Dry Bulk Carrier and Oil Tanker- are designed to carry a range of cargoes with a
stowage factor of less than 1.5 or 1.6 m3/tonne so that the amount of cargo they can carry is solely
determined by their deadweight. As a consequence they are box like single deck ships with a
relatively simple structural arrangement.
In the case of the traditional general cargo ship or high speed cargo liner (now obsolete)
erections were added - typically in the form of Poop, Bridge and Forecastle - but more
commonly recently simply a shelter deck. The presence of this first tier of erections on the
freeboard deck allowed the carriage of additional deadweight but enclosed volume (capacity)
increased faster and the cargo stowage factor rose. The volume generated by adopting a
satisfactory height of tween deck tended to cause a jump in the stowage factor to about 1.9
m3/tonne although an intermediate value could be obtained by covering less than the full length
of the ship. The cargo liner whose trade has been extensively taken over by the container ship
often carried cargoes ofhigh value but low density (including passengers). This type of ship was
designed with several tween decks above each hold to ensure that adequate volume (capacity)
was available to protect from the weather all the cargo carried.
If the cargo stowage factor exceeds 2.3 m3/tonne an additional tier of erections is usually
required. Such a cargo is rare but one example is Bananas with a factor of 4.0 m3/tonne and
another is the car - either on a ferry or on a "Bulk Car Carrier". Passengers too have a high
stowage factor as is made obvious by the extensive superstructures to be found on cross-channel
ferries and cruise liners.
An exact estimate of cargo stowage factor is hard to make, especially as it will vary over the
vessel's life due to alterations in trading patterns. However it is worth noting that cargo
deadweight can always be gained in the short term at the expense of carrying less fuel and
bunkering more frequently while additional covered capacity is expensive to provide.