John W Waterhouse News

New York City is set to receive its first public hybrid-electric ferry, Mayor Eric Adams announced on Wednesday.The first-of-its-kind vessel—currently under construction at Conrad Shipyard’s facility in Morgan City, La.— will begin transporting passengers to Governors Island in summer of 2024. It will replace the diesel-powered Lt. Samuel S. Coursen, the Trust for Governors Island’s current vehicle and passenger ferry, which was commissioned by the U.S. Army in 1956 and has been…

Is it Right for Your Operation? That Depends, says EBDG’s John Waterhouse. Elliott Bay Design Group (EBDG) serves many ferry customers in North America. These clients read the trade publications and see various articles on new technologies such as hybrid propulsion, battery powered vessels or zero emission vessels. After finishing such an article they ask themselves: “What advantages would that technology bring to my operation and what will it cost?” To that end, EBDG developed some tools to help answer those questions.

Interferry has unveiled a strategic plan promising to put safety issues at the heart of its work as the voice of the worldwide ferry industry. The pledge came at the global trade association’s 41st annual conference in Manila – a venue chosen to spotlight the challenges of domestic ferry safety in developing nations. According to Interferry, the plan signals its overriding ambition to help lift ferry safety in all parts of the world to the very high standard already in place in North America and Europe, where casualties in recent decades have been extremely rare.

Elliott Bay Design Group, a Seattle-based Naval Architect and Marine Engineering firm with offices in New Orleans and Ketchikan, has hired seasoned marine professional Jim Towers. Towers, originally hired at the firm in 2000, brings more than 30 years' experience to his role as Senior Naval Architect and Marine Engineer. Tower's extensive skill set includes production engineering and management, shipyard estimating and budget control, CAD design, repair yard engineering and management as well as expertise in the design and construction of offshore and passenger vessels…

Seakeeping refers to motions of a vessel in waves, but sea-kindliness is a characteristic sought after in most vessels. A sea-kindly vessel is easy on its crew and easy on its gear. Trying to define sea-kindly is difficult. The deep sea mariner may use qualitative descriptions such as "an easy roll" or "a wet boat," but the vessel designer must look for quantitative descriptions. There are six degrees of motion in a vessel, three are linear: surge, heave, and sway; three are rotational: pitch, roll, and yaw. Each of these degrees of motion has associated values of amplitude, velocity, and acceleration. A vessel in a beam sea can be rolling up to 30 degrees (amplitude) and the associated acceleration could be 0.5 g or 1 g.

By John W. Picture this scenario: It's the middle of the night — 3:30 a.m. to be exact. The phone rings — it's a client is calling to say that a vessel is in distress and our services as an engineering firm are needed. "This is no drill." So many factors are at risk - factors that are not to be taken lightly; people's lives, the environment, and property. How will the next few hours or days play out? One of the key events in my life that helped lead me to my profession as a ship designer was a book about "bad days at sea." The book was The Grey Seas Under by Farley Mowat. If you love the sea then this is a must read. It gives a true taste of salvage operations and the courage of those who wrest disaster from the hungry sea.

by John W. As a designer of ships, and president of a vessel design company, I know the shipbuilding industry is made up of people who recognize the importance of ferries, cruise ships and other maritime vessels to our economy. These same people also care a great deal about the marine environment in which our ships operate. That's why reports by environmental groups criticizing the marine industry for supposed ecological offenses leave a bad taste in the mouths of those who know the whole story. For example, a recent report on cruise ships by the Oceans Conservancy (Hertz and Davis, Cruise Control, May 2004) states, "Some of the pollutants generated by these giant ships daily include as much as 37…

According to the Baltimore Sun last April 21, 100,000 visitors came to town the day before, just to see the boats. Most had arrived for the Volvo races, an endurance test of sorts. But without so much press, from as far off as Seattle, another 48 came for a ship whose endurance was legend already. For a near half-century with the Coast Guard, the Tamaroa fought famously bad seas - and before that, enemy fire. Her quiet admirers arrived Balto with scrapers in hand, wrenches at the ready, plans in mind. Tamaroa had taken world wars and nature's wrath in stride. But civilian life got her down. Her preceding nine years were spent in near-isolation, open to intruders and the elements, gathering rust. April 20 was the day all that would change. Some of the 48 came to relive, some to renew.