Page 10: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (December 2021)

Back to the Drawing Board

The Truth behind Great Ships

By Rik van Hemmen, Martin & Ottaway ast year I provided a list of my favorite historical ships as my contribution to the Great Ships issue.

Even though I received some pushback on the list, I

L see no need to amend it.

I created that list to avoid having to judge today’s Great

Ships, but the second time around I suppose I cannot evade my mission and should focus on present day vessels, and there is a lot of interesting stuff being produced in the U.S. and globally.

But behind every Great Ship there are a lot of great people that stood at her cradle, so instead of focusing on the ships, it occurred to me it makes more sense to focus on the people behind the ships. In this regard, the world has changed a lot, and ship designers have become more anonymous. I know some great ship designers, but the public, and even our in- ©acrogame/AdobeStock dustry at large, knows very few, if any.

Often the conceiver, the inventor, gets credit: think Robert “Often the conceiver,

Fulton, or Isambard Brunel, or John Erricson, or James Bu- the inventor, gets credit. chanon Eads, or Nat Herreshoff, or Hyman Rickover. While

While notable, even notable, even those luminaries were very capable, but small those luminaries were cogs in large machines. very capable, but small

Once we go down the forensic rabbit hole, it becomes ap- cogs in large machines.” parent that their achievements relied on a large number of participants who brought the idea to fruition. Oftentimes the success of the idea did not rely on people that worked on remarks by lots of individuals, leading to a place where the the project itself, but on other, possibly even more vision- “Yeah, no way that could ever work” opinions are convert- ary people who labored at softening resistance to a certain ed, silenced, sidelined, ignored, or overpowered and what innovative approach. emerges is a Great Ship.

What I see today I often ? rst heard 25 years (or longer)

Almost always there is a nominal leader for such a project, ago when attending a paper presentation in an almost empty but if you listen to the great leaders on such projects, we

SNAME meeting room, where a young and naïve (or old often ignore the one thing they always say at the christening and grizzled) engineer presented a paper on a subject where or commissioning: “It could not have happened without this some of us were skeptical, but then thought: “Wow, they great team.” may be on to something.” After the presentation we would

While we may prefer to be remembered as the Great Ship go to the front of the room and thank the presenter, while creation leaders (even though the public does not notice or others walked out the door mumbling: “Yeah, no way that care anyway), for those of us who aim to create Great Ships could ever work.” (and that includes among others, engineers, designers, ship

We would go home and forget about it, and then a year or building specialists, the actual customers, equipment suppli- so later someone else would mention the same problem and ers, underwriters, regulators and ? nanciers) there is only one we would say: “Have you read so and so’s paper?” And the place to be, and that is to be on the team that creates Great cycle would continue until after many years somebody else Ships. We are in a creative industry and that means we do implemented the idea. not create average ships, we seek to be part of the Great

The path to Great Ships is a path littered with lots of single

Ship Creation Teams. And Great Ships are not the largest 10 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • December 2021

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