Abstract
Methods of designing the bottom of ship's hulls were only a small part of the process of building a frame‐based ship in Portugal in the 16th and early 17th centuries, but they deserve a careful look. Using a number of geometric algorithms that were already well‐known to Italian shipwrights of the 15th century, Portuguese shipwrights obtained the co‐ordinates of the turn of the bilge points of the central, pre‐designed, frames without the need for making drawings.
© 2006 The Author
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Henrique Borralho, a Ph.D. student at Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Portugal, and Texas A&M University, USA, for his precious help with the analytical study of these methods.