Page 16: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (November 2021)

Back to the Drawing Board

Figure 3: Design Spiral 2 Circa 1995 ing worldwide cargo shipping system ef? ciencies.

But getting back to the inef? ciency of ef? cient components, it is pos- sible to design a very ef? cient ship, but the use of that ship can very well result in less-than-optimal transportation of the goods it is intended to transport. This is an incredibly complex issue, but if not properly ana- lyzed and designed will result in unnecessary waste and CO2 emissions on a global level. The question is: How do we analyze that? Is there an equivalent design diagram that we can use as a mental aid?

While the design spiral can apply to all types of ships, in cargo ship- ping, the mission is generally de? ned as the ability to deliver a certain amount of cargo between two ports, but CO2 is not de? ned by port-to- port emissions; it is de? ned by door-to-door emissions.

Such a design diagram would need to straddle a new mission outlook; instead of port-to-port, we need to analyze door-to-door. I suppose we would call that full system mission, and that would add another sector beyond hybrid options and we would end up with something like Figure 5.

Very complex with many more trips around the sectors. And then the central question is this: Who are the people that would exercise

Figure 4: Design Spiral 3 Circa 2015 this spiral to come up with viable solutions? Transportation engineers?

Systems engineers? Naval Architects? Macro economists?

Or maybe a combination of them (although designers know that de- sign by committee always results in camels). Computer engineers may look at this and think in terms of databases, computations, and optimi- zation program loops, but, while helpful in re? nement, the inspiration

Figure 6:

John Niedermair’s initial pencil sketch of the LST. His ? rst pass around the spiral, and very nearly the last pass too. Brilliant.

Figure 5: Design Spiral 4, the CO2 reality

MR #11 (1-17).indd 16 11/4/2021 9:18:45 AM