The shape of the hull is much more like a speed boat
but the overall displacement plus the CG being way forward that will make
this hull difficult to get up on plane.
I think I know which boat. It's got some nice innovations. Hope to see
some info as it progresses in design.
If we take a heavy pressure hull, encase it inside big ballast tanks, we
can make it float well above the surfaced water line of the hull alone. Just
how big the ballast tanks need to be depends on how heavy the pressure hull
is. Of course, it takes a LOT of air to blow out the tanks.....I've got 320
cu.ft. of onboard air for ballast blow. That should give me 11 blows at/near
the surface. I can hardly wait to finish welding the tanks to see exactly how
much they hold. I'll use a 5 gallon bucket and fill 'em up with water to get a
real number.
One concern for me was when towing, the ballast tanks might fill up with
water just by virtue of the water piling up against the openings.
Again, another trade-off.
The open ports to my ballast tanks are short tube sections of 2-1/2
stainless pipe cut into the bottom of the tanks, ( two each tank ) and
angled backward so the water flow when towing will be rushing past the
openings. The trade-off is maybe slower to fill when getting ready to dive,
and possible over pressurizing the tanks if I dump too much air into them too
quickly. I can always increase the size later if these two events prove
problematic. The air side of the tanks is 1 inch so I'm hoping the water can
get in and out without stressing the tanks.
Frank D.