Why did wooden ships never get much beyond 300 feet...

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Cherp

No, a cubit in the ancient world was (as the name implies) a cube, measuring four fig-fruit lengths a side. That's a very small boat, but you must recognise that Noah and the animals were not evolved to their current size. Noah himself would have been only two feet tall, in today's measure and a few cubits in girth - small but stocky. The flood itself was probably only a couple of hundred gallons. As Albert Einstein said, it's all relative.

In reality he just saved his family and livestock.. the rest is Chinese Whispers..
1 Cubit = 45.72 centimetres.

[Jdege]

Originally Posted by TurninTurtle

The size of a cubit changed... because the size of people changed. 5 ft used to be tall.

Historically, height has increased and decreased, based on the quality of the diet.

Longevity & health in ancient Paleolithic vs. Neolithic peoples

[reed1v]

Originally Posted by boatman61

In reality he just saved his family and livestock.. the rest is Chinese Whispers..
1 Cubit = 45.72 centimetres.

Evidently everyone has forgotten their grammar school latin classes. Cubit has nothing to do with cubes. Means Elbow. Not even pronounced as cub-it, but as coo bit. So much for the decline of western knowledge. Now go back and brush up on your latin and greek lessons.

[El Pinguino]

While wooden sailing ships may not have exceeded 300 feet steel ships didn't get a whole lot bigger for many years... pre WW2 the only exception being a few oil tankers and of course passenger liners ... and the Great Eastern. Standard designs in WW2 were about 400 feet and even into the 50's British cargo liners only grew to about 500 feet.

[reed1v]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

While wooden sailing ships may not have exceeded 300 feet steel ships didn't get a whole lot bigger for many years... pre WW2 the only exception being a few oil tankers and of course passenger liners ... and the Great Eastern. Standard designs in WW2 were about 400 feet and even into the 50's British cargo liners only grew to about 500 feet.

Part of the reason was the need to build ships that would fit into existing dockage and channel drafts. Its way more expensive to rebuild dockage than to build a ship. You could build a 2000' ship but no one is set up to handle it.

[Snowpetrel]

Originally Posted by reed1v

Quite true plus related to electrolysis was the electrical field set up by a steel ship. Created havoc with compasses until degaussing tools became available. The field created by moving thousands of tons of steel through salt water is quite significant.

Flinders bars and kelvins balls plus permenant magnets where understood and used long before the need to degauss ships to reduce the magnetically triggered mine danger in WW2.

[reed1v]

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

Flinders bars and kelvins balls plus permenant magnets where understood and used long before the need to degauss ships to reduce the magnetically triggered mine danger in WW2.

Those old methods worked well on wooden ships but not so well on steel ships, especially when surrounded with all sorts of electrical systems. One problem that confounded the Navy was how the magnetic fields kept changing due to course heading, stowage of supplies, and even the act of degaussing affected the compasses. Nowadays other systems become important to shield from the changing magnetic field--satcom, guidance systems, etc.

So yes, Flinders bars worked, but not for protecting other systems from powerful magnetic fields. Now lets see, where did we store the fifty tons of gun powder for our 16 inch guns?

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by reed1v

Evidently everyone has forgotten their grammar school latin classes. Cubit has nothing to do with cubes. Means Elbow. Not even pronounced as cub-it, but as coo bit. So much for the decline of western knowledge. Now go back and brush up on your latin and greek lessons.

Studied English, Hindi and Urdu not Latin.. as for the measurement I quoted.. that came from Western scholars who alledgedly know it all..

[black_sails]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Quite possibly because the cost would have been higher than simply plating in steel! The additional strength afforded by said plating would likely mean that t he framing would be less expensive to build... a win-win situation.

Jim

Hmm... that's a good point! Though it's more trying to understand the engineering side than the economics side.

[Snowpetrel]

Originally Posted by reed1v

Those old methods worked well on wooden ships but not so well on steel ships, especially when surrounded with all sorts of electrical systems. One problem that confounded the Navy was how the magnetic fields kept changing due to course heading, stowage of supplies, and even the act of degaussing affected the compasses. Nowadays other systems become important to shield from the changing magnetic field--satcom, guidance systems, etc.

So yes, Flinders bars worked, but not for protecting other systems from powerful magnetic fields. Now lets see, where did we store the fifty tons of gun powder for our 16 inch guns?

Ha, nobody told any of the large steel comercial ships still steaming regularly around the world that they are using outdated technology that doesnt work!

[reed1v]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Studied English, Hindi and Urdu not Latin.. as for the measurement I quoted.. that came from Western scholars who alledgedly know it all..

Evidently your "scholars" probably spend too much time at the bar and not at the books. As far as your "eastern" training, suspect the old latin units(adopted by the Romans later on) had equivalency in ancient India's civilizations. Many of the ancient Buddhist temples(predating the Hindu influence) followed geometric measurement series very similar to what was employed by the ancient Greeks, and interestingly, by the ancient Persians.

But then, the human body is a fairly standardized product. Which is probably why our cars for the most part are as wide as two horses harnessed side by side. Speaking about Roman legions....

[Lepke]

The British Navy dealt with the maximum size wood vessel about the time of the Napoleonic wars. One of Adm. Nelson's older ships had cables wrapped around the hull to extend her age and keep the planking in place. When building a new wood ship, each plank is one continuous piece from the stem to the stern. Planks are not straight, but a curve, tapered on the ends. The planking is much of the strength of the hull. Not many 300' trees these days. The lumber schooners of the US West Coast are planked with one continuous fir plank. The builder of the USS Constitution solved the hogging problem. look it up. The twisting motion of the ocean kills long wood ships.
In the Navy on a 375' destroyer, in moderate seas, standing at the stern, on one side, I could see the the bow move several feet in relation of the stern. Now just up and down, but twisting. Also there was a riveted seam joining the front and back halves of the ship's hull to allow flexing. The deck house on the main deck had a flexible section about the center of the ship to allow movement without metal fatigue. Everything else was welded. Even then, during a especially rough storm, a 6' crack developed in the hull.

[Stumble]

Originally Posted by Lepke

The British Navy dealt with the maximum size wood vessel about the time of the Napoleonic wars. One of Adm. Nelson's older ships had cables wrapped around the hull to extend her age and keep the planking in place. When building a new wood ship, each plank is one continuous piece from the stem to the stern. Planks are not straight, but a curve, tapered on the ends. The planking is much of the strength of the hull. Not many 300' trees these days. The lumber schooners of the US West Coast are planked with one continuous fir plank. The builder of the USS Constitution solved the hogging problem. look it up. The twisting motion of the ocean kills long wood ships.
In the Navy on a 375' destroyer, in moderate seas, standing at the stern, on one side, I could see the the bow move several feet in relation of the stern. Now just up and down, but twisting. Also there was a riveted seam joining the front and back halves of the ship's hull to allow flexing. The deck house on the main deck had a flexible section about the center of the ship to allow movement without metal fatigue. Everything else was welded. Even then, during a especially rough storm, a 6' crack developed in the hull.

I'm not sure where you got your information from, but it's wrong.

1) the USS Constitution suffered pretty substantially from sagging. As a national treasure they decided to spend the money to get rid of it by supporting the sag in the hull, and over the course of the restoration slowely lowering the jacks in the middle of the boat. When she went into dry dock there was more than a foot of sag to be removed which took more than three years to settle out.

2) no large ships used continuious planks. Planks were off set butt joints with tar caulked seams.

3) even the luber schooners were made with typical planking, and they may have been made in one of the few places in the world with lumber long enough to actually make full length planks. Take a look at the C.A. Thayer as an example.

[reed1v]

roger that Stumble. One continuous plank would have been a disaster. Hulls would have sprunk easily. Planking and oakum allowed the hull to flex and twist without undo leakage(leakage was normal and actually a sign the hull was not grinding itself to pieces).

Yup old ironside had hog in her. Was evident at the Charlestown yard. Looked like a humpback camel. In addition, any fool could see the old planking sprunk in several places. Even the old photos back to the 1850s clearly showed the planking system. No continuous pieces.

Cable wrapping was a last ditch attempt to keep a hull going well beyond its time. Not sure it was much of a success except for emergencies since the cables would "saw" through the hull in a seaway.

Old timers liked riveted hulls because they allowed the hull plates to work independently and give the hull more flex. Welded hulls were looked on with suspicious since they made the hull more rigid and were thought to place a lot of the hull stress on the welds rather than being distributed throughout the plates. Plus rivets were easily inspected; not so welds. Another fear was that welders would weld the outside and not the inside of the butt joint. Quicker and easier(Instead of filling the gap, you just weld a lip across the butt joint).

[boatman61]

[QUOTE=reed1v;2113835]Evidently your "scholars" probably spend too much time at the bar and not at the books. As far as your "eastern" training, suspect the old latin units(adopted by the Romans later on) had equivalency in ancient India's civilizations. Many of the ancient Buddhist temples(predating the Hindu influence) followed geometric measurement series very similar to what was employed by the ancient Greeks, and interestingly, by the ancient Persians.
QUOTE]

Ahahahaaa... you've just shot the pulpit your preaching from..
Guatama Buddha was a Hindu prince who foreswore his heritage and went walkabout.. Buddhism and Jainism sprang from the roots of Hinduism and the belief in Brahman and Vishnu which predate Buddha by over 1000yrs
[Quote] Go back to School [Quote]