Page 24: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (December 2020)

Great

Ships

The Ship Designer’s of all time

CURSE

By Rik van Hemmen or the Design issue Greg asked me to write about preservable states. One scary example is the deterioration of a favorite ship design. I have no favorite ship de- the Cruiser OLYMPIA in Philadelphia. This is a truly rare sign, or should say there are simply too many that and signi? cant vessel, and if we are going to preserve any

F are truly worthy of mention. But when consider- vessels at all, this one should be high on the list.

ing favorite designs, ship designers (and builders) do carry Undoubtedly, the maritime profession, community, and in- a strange curse. Unique among engineers (and artists, archi- dustry deserves a level of public recognition at the national tects, and industrial designers) their creations only live for level for its achievements and the only way to achieve that is about 30 years. With very few exceptions, in their own life to have physical representatives of the art available for edu- time, ship designers get to see the disassembly of most of cational purposes, but we have to be, oh so, careful at where their creations. I am not aware of any other creations that the money is spent. are so readily tossed aside. While cars or vacuum cleaners, We really need to engage in some type of triage, but let me are mass produced and often tossed aside in 10 years or so, ? rst point out that in vessel preservation there are actually the best of them do end up in museums. Good buildings tend a number of tiers. Small craft preservation is not a pressing to last much longer and so do bridges, dams and other large problem since it is generally performed by enthusiasts, and engineering structures. However, only a very small portion while I do pain for the loss of some very important small of ships survive past 30, and even then, these are not the nec- craft, overall, small craft preservation is at about the same essarily the best designs, they may have simply persisted in state as automobile preservation. 100 years from now we will putting off their demise for random reasons. have lost some worthy vessels, but I am sure there will still be

In effect, we naval architects and marine engineers are the some Alden schooners out there and some Sparkman and Ste-

Christos of the engineering world. Our impact is of the ? eet- vens 12 Meters and more than a few Nat Herreshoff 12 1/2s.

ing kind. Even in the larger yacht range there will be excellently pre-

Occasionally maritime nuts like us are asked to assist in the served examples funded by the really wealthy. preservation of “Historic” (old) vessels in perpetuity. And then there will be regional vessels preserved by in-

Undoubtedly there are ships that are so unique that they credible volunteers who will continue to soldier on. One of should be preserved, but preserving ships is really, really ex- my very favorites is LST 325 in Evansville, Indiana. This is pensive and, while from a historic perspective, it is important the type of vessel that can be (barely) maintained by a local to preserve them, I am also seeing too many maritime muse- community. The CHARLES MORGAN also could be ? tted ums ? ghting for the same dollar and ending up with insuf? - in this category. Another excellent example is the Barque cient funds to keep their vessels from deteriorating into non- ELISSA. 24 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • December 2020

MR #12 (18-33).indd 24 12/4/2020 8:48:02 AM