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to meet the constraints and then to build out the concept in tion is hard work. If it were easy, everybody would be doing it.

later versions. I often think back on watching TV coverage of one of the

Remarkably this is what has actually occurred with the Ar- Space X rockets failing to land on its feet. To me it registered leigh Burke destroyers. The original Burkes were quite con- as: “Oh, well it did not work this time, but I am sure they servative and did not even have a hangar, but later versions learned something.” However, the TV voiceover said: “For have become much more capable (although the displacement the sixth time in a row Elon Musk’s Space X rocket failed to increases would not be allowed in the above approaches, and land on its feet.” later Flights also suffered from design dithering delays). I ended up screaming at the TV: “Well what did you expect? There is no guarantee that any design will be a raging suc- This is really really hard! The only way to make it work is to cess, regardless of who designed it and how many people pro- keep trying! Just let them do their job and shut up!” vided input. That means that we simply have to accept that some designs work better than others and just learn from it and carry on. In that light we do not have to think of the LCS and Zumwalt designs as failures. The only failure in those projects is that it took forever to actually build those boats to see how good or bad they were.

For every column I write MREN makes a small contribution to an organization of my choice. For the foreseeable

The American engineering (tinkering) approach of build- future I am selecting SL7Expo. An industry wide effort to ing something and then making it better is a valid concept in develop a Smithsonian level exhibit center for commercial complex designs with rapidly changing technology. However, maritime on a ship that is a paragon of a fast design that means that there has to be strong pushback against second process. https://sl7expo.org/members/ guessers when things don’t work out in the ? rst pass. Innova-

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www.seaspan.com www.marinelink.com 11

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