Quoted By:
I've been reading about hull speed and prismatic coefficient recently, and there's something I don't totally understand.
Let's say we have a fairly small boat that's very fine, say 20ft with a Cp of .55 or something. Obviously that boat's gonna be most efficient to propel at pretty low speed/length ratios.
But what if it was in a real blow? Hull speed isn't max speed, so it's gonna do more than 6 knots if there's a 18 knot wind and they have canvas up. But does the hull shape itself create a kind of "braking" effect due to the rapidly increasing force needed for each knot increase in speed? Questions of stability aside for the moment, would this suggest that finer hull-forms are generally more sea-worthy, or is this imagined "braking effect" unimportant/nonexistent compared to other considerations?
I've pretty much just mucked about on the bay in my 12 foot dinghy, but am very interested in learning more about these sorts of things. Any recommendations for reading to gain a broad understanding are much appreciated.
