46.1.1 Mission

Rather than being a specific ship type configured to undertake a transportation or operational mission, multi-hulled configurations are options to be explored by the ship designer in the early exploratory phases of the ship design process for many operational scenarios. Furthermore, certain multi-hulls have particular capabilities that make them attractive options to be considered in comparison with the ubiquitous monohull. Thus, for example if a design has to meet a requirement for a fast short ferry route the designer may well choose a catamaran, possibly with a wave piercing configuration. This form, which was first introduced on an economic basis in Australia, has become a successful ship type providing an increasingly large proportion of the fast ferry market around the world and with an ever-increasing size range. It is for this reason that a separate chapter (Chapter 45) is devoted to the high-speed catamaran ferry type. The present chapter consequently focuses on the wider range of multi-hulls, and in particular the Small Waterplane Twin Hull (SWATH) vessel and the Trimaran ship type, namely, a slender monohull with small-displacement outriggers.

There are in addition variants of these two basic configurations, such as the SLICE and the Pentamaran, which will also be considered as sub-variants of the two main configurational types. Beyond them are certain of the hybrid advanced hull forms, such as the Surface Effects Ship (SES), a variant of the high speed Air Cushion Vehicle (ACV) with some buoyancy based lift from the two...