Hull of a Ship – Understanding Design & Stability

As a vessel’s most vital structural entity, the hull is precisely designed to fulfill a diverse range of requirements throughout the life of a ship. A vessel’s entire design and construction is centered on the hull.

What is the Hull of a Ship?

The hull is a ship’s watertight enclosure, engineered to provide sufficient protection for the cargo, machinery, and passenger accommodations. Its most basic purpose is to safeguard against weather, flooding, and/or structural damage.

However, this definition alone is a significant oversimplification that would reduce our understanding of the many aspects of a ship’s hull considerably. Beyond its core function, the hull is designed for numerous other factors that will come into play over the full length of a vessel’s lifetime.

The Basics of Ship Hull Design Explained

Composed of a complex assortment of parts, the hull of a vessel incorporates many aspects of shipbuilding technology. Understanding the basic functions of a ship’s hull and the terms used in discussing its characteristics is a necessity before its role in boat stability design can be fully comprehended.

The following is a condensed list of hull-related nomenclature, providing an overview of the words and phrases you can expect to see regularly used about hull design:

Bow and Stern:

The bow is the hull’s forwardmost contour, while its aft-most is referred to as the stern. More specifically, the bow’s forwardmost contour is called the stem.

Forward Perpendicular:

The forward perpendicular can be defined as an imaginary perpendicular drawn at the point where the waterline and bow intersect. It is commonly used as the forward reference of the ship’s hull in the majority of the hydrostatic calculations.

Aft Perpendicular:

The exact definition of the aft perpendicular can depend on the specific ship designed. It may either be the perpendicular drawn through the center-line of the rudder pintles or the one through the aft side of the rudder post. It is used as the aft reference line in all hydrostatic calculations.

Length between Perpendiculars:

As the name suggests, the length between perpendiculars is the length between the aft and forward perpendiculars. Also referred to as “LBP,” it is a critical parameter for stability calculations, making it an important part of ship stability analyses.


The sheer is the upward curve that is formed by the ship’s main deck, in reference to the deck’s level at midship. Generally, the forward sheer is more than the aft sheer, and mainly to keep a “dry ship” by minimizing the amount of “green water” coming onto the deck. This reduces ship resistance and helps to maintain forward view from the bridge.

Summer Load Line:

The summer load line is the ship’s waterline at sea water, specifically when it is at its design weight and ballast conditions. Also known as the “design draft,” the summer load line is used to form the reference for all of the ship’s remaining load lines.

Length of Waterline:

The ship’s length of waterline is its hull’s length at the summer load line. This value is needed for the calculation of the ship’s hydrostatics, in addition to calculations for propeller design.

Length Overall:

The overall length is the measurement of distance between the aft-most and forward-most point of the ship’s hull. It is primarily used to design the ship’s plans for docking/undocking, and can be an important measurement to consider in the selection of a proper building block in a shipyard with multiple building docks available.

Hull of a Ship: Understanding Design and Characteristics

As previously mentioned, the hull of a vessel is its core structural entity, amounting to about 70 percent of a total structural design. This is why the process of hull design is so complex.

Designing a hull can be broken down into five stages:

  1. The calculation of wave loads on the hull
  2. The calculation of scantlings (all of the ship’s structural members, including plates, girders, stiffeners, beans, and pillars) at midship
  3. The preparation of the midship section’s structural drawing, as well as the calculation of its section modulus
  4. The calculation of scantlings for the structural members at each frame, as well as the preparation of corresponding drawings (as well as application of formulae and creation of drawings for the aft and forward sections, and bulkheads)
  5. The calculation of the ship’s steel weight
  6. The development of a three-dimensional structural model, as well as the conduction of finite element analyses (FEA)

Course Stability

In addition to its importance in structural design, another key characteristic of the hull is its maneuverability. Also called its directional or course-keeping performance, the bare hull is evaluating using the following:

  • Straight-line Stability: If a vessel is moving in a straight line, and is subjected to an external disturbance, but continues to maintain a straight line in the adjusted direction without assistance from the rudder, the hull is described as possessing straight-line stability.
  • Directional Stability: If a vessel that is moving in a straight line experiences an external disturbance, then continues to travel along a new course parallel to its initial direction, it can be characterized as having directional stability. Although directional stability requires help from a control surface (such as a rudder), it is more easily attainable if the ship has straight-line stability.
  • Path Stability: If a vessel that is moving in a straight line encounters an external disturbance, but still maintains the same path after a minimum number of oscillations, it has path stability. Much like directional stability, path stability can only be achieved if straight-line stability exists.

Therefore, straight-line stability is the primary goal in the development of the hull. Keep in mind that directional and path stability can only be achieved by extra means of a rudder and autopilot.

Hull-Superstructure Interaction

A main deck superstructure can decrease the bending stress at the deck, but can also cause deformations located at the superstructure ends. In order to be satisfactorily efficient, the superstructure must be capable of absorbing a certain amount of bending stress. It becomes the ship designer’s decision whether to aim for a superstructure that can take up bending stress, or one that abstains from interaction with the hull.

Other Key Characteristics of Hull Design

In addition to those noted above, there are other aspects of hull design that affect performance at sea, including its:

  • Energy efficiency
  • Watertight integrity
  • Vibration and dynamic response
  • Seakeeping behavior

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