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Small Craft

The goal of the committee is:
 
· Increasing the visibility of SNAME in the small craft community and supporting the small craft community by promulgating opportunities for the small craft community to access technical information available through SNAME
· Working with the small craft community in developing standards for safety and related issues.
· Aggregating or supporting technical research efforts in small craft topics where appropriate and feasible
 
Past and ongoing activities of the committee have included:
 
· In association with the ship stability panel, the committee published T&R Bulletin 9-1 (2015) to provide uniform guidelines for air inclining experiments. Air inclining is the preferred technique for establishing weight and centers of small craft, particularly those complying with the ISO 12217 stability requirements for the European Community Recreational Craft Directive. It is also required for some governmental acquisitions. The bulletin has been in use long enough to have accumulated some experience with it so the Committee is starting a project to review and update it. Committee members also promulgated a parallel stand through ASTM that will be updated in accordance with the T&R Bulletin revisions.
 
· The International Boatbuilder’s Exhibition (IBEX – www.ibexshow.com) is held every year in the fall. This is a week-long international exhibition for small craft builders, mainly in the recreational sector. It comprises an exhibition hall, industry focused short seminars, various other meetings and a one day pre-conference event for sponsored longer seminars / training events. The committee has presented day long “Super Sessions” on specific aspects of small craft design:
 
2014 – Modern stability standards for power boats 6 – 24 meters long (ISO 12217-1)
2015 – Modern stability standards for sailing yachts 6 – 24 meters long (ISO 12217-1)
2016 – Propeller matching for small craft
2018 – Small craft structure (ISO 12215)
2019 – Testing and calculation for U.S. small craft stability in accordance with 33 CFR 183
 
In addition the committee has solicited SNAME members to present short seminars, and in 2019 held a one day technical symposium.
 
People interested in participating in IBEX activities are urged to contact the Committee when the IBEX schedule is set up in December and January of each year.
 
· Recent accidents have increased the visibility of small craft stability and ABYC has promulgated a requirement for safe loading instructions for boats larger than 20’ in anticipation of possible regulations. SNAME members are working with ABYC to develop guidance for using existing established standards to establish safe loading. The committee is working with Marine Forensics and Ship Stability on this projects.
 
New proposed activities of the committee are:
 
· Substantial amounts of material were developed for some of the Super Sessions, and it is planned to “upcycle” some of them into T&R Bulletins. People interested in this effort, especially reviewers, are encouraged to contact the Committee.
 
· The American Boat and Yacht Council (ABYC) is an organization establishing safety and similar standards, and training in aspects of boat building, mainly for the recreational small craft community. The Committee is working to establish cooperative efforts with ABYC (beginning with the stability guidance project above). The main thrust of these efforts would probably be joint training events, especially for more technical areas. This would begin by leveraging the previous efforts to develop IBEX “Super Sessions”
 
· Previous research has identified accidents involving certain small craft that may point to deficiencies in existing stability standards. The Committee hopes to support some of this research, especially comparisons between various standards. One area of note is the adequacy of persons on board stability limits in very small craft, and another is the effect of water on deck in “Offshore” open cockpit craft, which have become larger and are being taken further offshore in recent years. This latter effort may involve computer simulations using a new technique, “Smoothed Particle Physics” using open source software to determine the dynamic effects of sloshing. People interested in this project are urged to contact the Committee.
 
· Committee members presented “Science of Sailing” talks at a library and a maritime museum. This may be expanded for outreach to the general public, because interest in boating may help increase visibility of SNAME and interest in the marine industry. The intent is to find volunteer presenters for this and other marine topics in various sections and develop basic material that they can download and adapt as they prefer. Then the SNAME website can provide a point of contact to a local speaker.
 
· There is also a Science of Sailing museum being established in the San Francisco Bay Area to using sailing oriented examples to teach scientific principles. Members have reached out informally to the museum, but this point of contact may be formalized.

If you are interested in joining this committee, please contact the Committee Chair

Committee Members