The Future of Webb's Towing Tank

Abstract

Webb Institute is.one of the few remaining institutions in the United States, devoted to educating students in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at the undergraduate level. Within the context of its educational program, a towing tank was constructed to be able to give hands-on experience to its students in the area of resistance and, later, seakeeping experiments. The facility was named the Robinson Model Basin (RMB) in honor of Admiral Robinson, Webb's president from 1945 to 1950. The primary purpose of the towing tank was always to serve the educational program, although some research and development work was, of course, performed by the Webb faculty. It suffices to mention the work on wave resistance by Ward, the trawler series by Nevitt, the springing research by Hoffman and Van Hooff, among others. What we wish to address now is the towing tank as it relates to: modem trends in the maritime business and in naval architecture education. The primary purpose of this contribution is to solicit the comments of attendees of the 26􀂀 ATTC on our conclusions. We welcome your suggestions.