User:Knud E. Hansen

Knud Emil Thorvald Henning Hansen, who gave his name to the firm, was, by all accounts an energetic and refined gentleman with an inquisitive mind. Born in Espergærde, near Helsingør, Denmark in 1900, he was the son of Eduard Hansen, a skipper of coastal sailing ships, and so the sea was in his blood from the outset. Hansen junior studied naval architecture at the Polyteknisk Læreanstalt in Copenhagen (nowadays Danmark’s Tekniske Universitet or DTU). Upon graduation in 1925, he gained experience in shipbuilding by working in a number of yards in Denmark and abroad, initially at Københavns Flydedok & Skibsværft. Thereafter, he travelled to Britain – widely regarded as being the home nation of modern shipbuilding – and to The Netherlands to find out about ship design practices in these countries. From 1927 until 1929, he worked in the drawing office of Burmeister & Wain, the famous Copenhagen shipyard and marine engine builder, before he joined the staff of the Helsingør Skibsværft, where he stayed until 1937. At the same time, Hansen was appointed technical consultant to the Søfartsmuseet (Danish National Maritime Museum) at Kronborg Castle and, later, he founded his own small shipping company – Rederiet Clipperfart – which between 1958 and 1961 operated a single motor coaster called the Clipperen. This had been designed by Hansen and built at Alssund Skibsværft in Sønderborg.

Boyhood From boyhood, Hansen had a passion for ships and the sea. He was particularly interested in traditional Nordic craft such as Baltic schooners, fishing cutters and Viking longships and he believed that their designs embodied lessons for latter day naval architects. One of his beliefs was that beauty and utility were inextricably connected, as demonstrated by historic Scandinavian vernacular ship types that had stood the test of time with each generation adding new refinements and improvements. For Hansen, naval architecture was not simply an engineering discipline. Instead, he believed that to design a ship was to take part in the furtherance of a Nordic cultural inheritance dating back many centuries. Indeed, the Knud E. Hansen A/S logo was (and remains) a Viking longship.

Naval Architecture in the 1930th In the mid-1930s, Knud E. Hansen designed the car ferry Peter Wessel, which was delivered in 1937. Building on this success, he established his own naval architectural and engineering consultancy in Copenhagen, initially with three assistants. Hitherto, the majority of shipowners would typically have invited bids from any shipyard capable of building a new vessel, with each yard’s drawing office submitting a design based on interpretation of the owner’s wishes (the largest lines had their own technical departments to carry out much of this work and some even had their own shipyards). Thus, for smaller operators, the final selection was inevitably a compromise between the quality and appropriateness of the design submissions and their respective costs. In contrast, Knud E. Hansen’s firm was independent and could work closely with each shipowner to develop designs precisely tailored to their needs, before going out to tender for construction. Knud E. Hansen thus found a lucrative niche which greatly benefited Scandinavian shipping companies and often gave their ships that vital competitive advantage.

Throughout the difficult war years and post-war shortages of the latter 1930s, 40s and early 50s, however, designs for fishing cutters and whale chasers, to be constructed in Denmark’s small shipyards, formed the greater part of Knud E. Hansen A/S’s design output. No doubt, even when designing such small and outwardly traditional ships, Hansen found ways to make them more effective and efficient (efficiency being one of the hallmarks of the modern Danish fishing industry).

Thereafter, Hansen supervised the designing of a number of other significant passenger ships, including the prototypes for the modern short-sea ferries used subsequently on many routes within Scandinavia and beyond – such as the Broen, the Djursland and the Kattegat. Alas, he did not live to see the Kattegat enter service because in 1960 he drowned in a tragic accident doing what he enjoyed best – sailing his yacht Sollys, in the company of his wife and children. This vessel had been designed by Hansen to replicate a nineteenth century prototype. In rough weather off the island of Anholt in the Kattegat, the boom moved suddenly, knocking Hansen overboard. As the Sollys had been designed to be as authentic as possible, there was no motor, and so it proved impossible to turn quickly to rescue him and his family could only watch in horror as he disappeared in the sea. Three weeks later, his body was washed ashore at Kullen on the Swedish Coast. His inspiration and his legacy lives on, however, in the successful consulting naval architectural practice of Knud E. Hansen A/S which, over the years since its foundation in 1937, is reckoned to have been involved in designing, surveying or supervising alterations to 15,128 ships – ranging from harbour launches to giant cruise ships and including several radical conversions of existing tonnage.

So what, then does a naval architecture consultancy such as Knud E. Hansen A/S actually do and why is it so vital to the design of modern passenger ships? Every sea-going vessel begins as a concept which is first translated into the terms of a specific business requirement - to carry a given amount of cargo or a particular number of passengers from one place to another. A speed must be determined, based on the number of voyages to be made over a day, week, month or year or the amount of time most advantageous for longer deep-sea cruises. How often the vessel will be bunkered and provisioned, and what are the navigating constraints of the waterways and harbours to be used, are other questions to be answered at the earliest stages.

The development of each project will be based upon a finely balanced mix of existing knowledge and careful predictions of future market conditions – after all, every ship represents a considerable financial risk and one which will take years to design and build. While there may be some image in the owner’s mind, for the consultant naval architect, a ship starts as a featureless block so that preconceptions do not cloud finding the most effective design solution. Experience and precedent will determine its overall dimensions, based on carrying capacity and speed. Generally, faster ships need to carry more to offset the greater expense of their slender curvilinear hulls and more powerful machinery, yet it may be more economical to build one or two fast ships to maintain the same sailing frequency than three or four slower ones. If a vessel is to carry passengers on long ocean crossings, the owner may opt for greater speed to reduce the number of consecutive days spent at sea, and so might have to carry more passengers to make the crossing economically viable.

Only after these primary concerns are defined and clearly laid out in the owner’s design brief can anyone start to consider the details of what the ship will actually look like when built and how it will be laid out internally. The cargo holds, trailer decks, passenger accommodation, machinery spaces, auxiliary services, fuel and ballast tanks, crew accommodation, stores areas, safety equipment such as lifeboats, deck areas and deck machinery - all make up what is collectively known as the general arrangement or GA drawing. This, along with the lines plan and transverse sectional drawings, form the centrepiece of the design output of the consulting naval architect. These drawings provide the ‘recipe’ for a ship, closely tailored to its owner’s requirements. Usually, the detailed construction drawings which show how individual aspects will be built and detailed are the responsibility of the shipyard – but the consultant naval architect will often be retained by a shipowner to supervise the translation of the GA into the building process. Depending on the level of experience and competence of the shipyard, sometimes he will be involved until the ship has been completed and delivered.

The process of developing a GA varies from one project to another, depending on who is involved and the complexity of the ship. In the most straightforward scenario, an owner may choose a standard contract design from a prospective builder or perhaps opt to merely replicate an existing prototype. While this may suffice for a tug, coastal freighter or small trawler, the greater sophistication of larger modern tonnage, especially ferries and cruise ships, usually demands a far more individualistic and precise approach. In designing successful passenger ships, it is necessary to think beyond the need of merely carrying a payload over a given distance. The naval architect must also take into account whether passengers will choose to book with any given ship or line, appearing to offer something more attractive, faster or less expensive than its competitors, and, with every new ship that is built, expectations rise higher than before.

Apart from the conceptualisation of new ships, the role of naval architecture is to apply the science and technology of ship design, taking into account the principles of hydrostatics, buoyancy and fluid dynamics that will keep the hull secure and upright on the seas and keep the spaces inside it and the superstructure dry, safe and comfortable. Detailed stability calculations are needed, and the international safety regulations and conventions governing shipping must be interpreted and applied for the ship to be registered by the classification societies. The design of a ship must take into account its precise performance when damaged by fire, collision or other mishap, such as sinking. The naval architect’s work includes detailed planning to meet specific criteria for the ship’s safe and timely evacuation.

On typical cruise and ferry design projects, it was the job of Knud E. Hansen A/S to provide a full general arrangement plan of a ship from funnel to keel, a lines plan and one or more sections amidships as well as all associated calculations. Building materials were specified and the drawings were then couriered to the shipyard where technical staff would draw up the remaining plans and detailed construction drawings. A senior naval architect from Knud E. Hansen A/S would then approve these in consultation with the shipowner before construction would commence.

Nowadays, the role of the passenger ship naval architect has expanded to encompass visualisation, concept development and issues of corporate culture and identity, meaning that, in recent years, the process has become highly collaborative. Each project develops differently, with the lead role in concept development being taken by the naval architect, sometimes working alongside industrial designers. The naval architect is, in fact, a key team player in the design process, along with a brace of engineers, and the owner’s and builder’s own technical departments.