let's build a ship

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

For modelling the shape of a ship better than a rectangular prism, have you looked at reconstruction plans of various ancient ships? There are a good set for a roundship in "Kyrenia II: Building a Replica of an Ancient Greek Merchantman" (PDF coming by email)

I've received that. Thanks! From a look at the diagrams, it seems that a round ship, at least, can be approximated as an ellipsoid. Unfortunately the formulae for ellipsoids are inelegant and a pain to work with. However, in approximating the horizontal cross section as an ellipse, I got partway there, and I think that using Average lines to figure the draft may have also gone partway there, in that the increased draft from a ship with no hydrodynamic lines probably reflects the ship being wider at the top than at the bottom. So maybe I can get by with the calculations I've done here.

I don't actually want to do numerical integration of surface area and volume; if I can get something that's within a factor of 2 that's probably close enough for gaming.