Martin & Ottaway is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. While maritime technology changed a lot in that period, it still relies on foundational truths. For example, maritime continues to be a very capital intensive industry. The returns on investment are often assumed to take a decade, and with cyclical ups and down, can easily… Read more »

In my prior blog I made reference to a story (of which I could not remember the title or the author) that I read only once many decades ago and that continues to make a strong impression on me. I provided a description of the story as follows: I think the story was called Narwal,… Read more »

In my commitment to STEMPHLA (the combination of STEM plus Philosophy, History, Language and Arts) in engineering, I have blogged on non-fiction books that messed with my head, great nautical books, and my Literature PhD thesis proposal on maritime and the modern novel. However, books don’t have to be maritime non-fiction to leave a lasting… Read more »

  This story is about 12M design, but it starts with a simple recent strength discussion.  We were looking into the strength of a bollard and lifted some bollard moment strength versus bollard diameter data from the US Navy Towing manual. To help the discussion, one of our engineers prepared a little spreadsheet and added… Read more »

  Of all the recreational thrills one can seek, iceboating is No. 1 with me. It is an elusive thrill, since I only iceboat locally and global warming is not helping. I am a member of our local iceboat club, but I will admit that I am not tightly dialed in with the real experts… Read more »