Talk:Ship resistance and propulsion

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A ship differs from any other large engineering structure in that – in addition to its other functions –it must be designed to move efficiently through the water with a minimum of external force. For thousands of years ship designers and builders of sailing vessels used rules of thumb based on the midship-section area to size the sails for a given vessel. The hull form and sail plan for the slipper ships, for, example evolved from experience, not from theory. It was not until the advent of steam power and the construction of large iron ships in the mid- 1800s that it became clear to ship owners and builders that a more rigorous approach was needed.