David replied to me: > > Oh, and I wonder if the tanker isn't more exciting than the trimaran. > > Even bigger suspension of disbelief, though.
Reasonable historical galleys could carry 150-250 rowers, anything beyond that would be a 'White Elephant'. We're not reasonable here, so take the high number and double it. That doesn't have to mean 500 oars, but the stats are the same for 100 five-man oars or 500 one-man oars. They generate 3,000 lbs. of motive thrust, equivalent to a 200-kW screw. The level of hydrodynamics is hard to decide. While Vehicles gives some guidelines regarding length-to-beam and roles, modern merchant hulls spend a lot of brain-power (and computing power) on the most efficient shapes. So go out on a limb and call it very fine. (We talked about that regarding the Archvillain's Yacht, but I'm deliberately cinematic here.) That allows a calculation of the maximum loaded weight for a given speed. mph weight 1 23,328,000 tons 2 1,030,962 tons 3 166,277 tons 4 45,562 tons 5 16,692 tons 6 7,348 tons Even with the best will, it is clear that the formula breaks down at low speed. On the other hand, our rowers might be able to move a hull of several thousand tons at a few mph ... Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
