The development of hydrodynamics: 1860–2010

In the early 1860s, little was really understood about ship resistance and many of the ideas on powering at that time were erroneous. Propeller design was very much a question of trial and error. The power installed in ships was often wrong and it was clear that there was a need for a method of estimating the power to be installed in order to attain a certain speed. However, over the following 150 years, significant development was made in estimating ship propulsive power.