The Speed and Power of Ships: A Manual of Marine Propulsion

Name: The Speed and Power of Ships: A Manual of Marine Propulsion
Author: David W. Taylor

David W. Taylor

Argues that a ship's resistance and required power can be predicted from systematic model-testing data organised by hull-form parameters, rather than derived case-by-case from theory.

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Where it is now wrong

Taylor's resistance data and standard series were the working reference for decades and have since been superseded by later series and by computational fluid dynamics. What survives is the reasoning about how hull form, speed and power trade against each other.

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FreeAdvancedlink checked 17 Sept 2026

If this is the wrong level

Too hard? Start hereBasic Principles of Ship PropulsionMAN Energy Solutions, 2018Explains how a ship's hull, propeller and engine must be matched as one system, arguing that most propulsion inefficiency comes from optimising one of the three in isolation.

Filed under Marine & Naval Engineering in Engineering.