The Gerald Ford is on its way. Imagine if it could hydroplane.......
The Gerald Ford has a cruising speed of 30 knots, and can be pushed a bit faster. So that is about what a lot of speedboats do. A really good hydroplane could go faster, but not for long, and not at sea.
The reason these large aircraft carriers have a high efficient speed is because of their length. Maximun efficient speed increases with the length of the ship.
Hull speed can be calculated by the following formula:
vhull≈1.34×LWL X the square root of the vessel length.
where
LWL is the length of the waterline in
feet, and vhull is the hull speed of the vessel in
knots
Note that the 1.34 is not a dimensionless constant.
If the length of waterline is given in
metres and desired hull speed in knots, the coefficient is 2.43 kn·m−½. The constant may be given as 1.34 to 1.51 knot·ft−½ in imperial units (depending on the source), or 4.50 to 5.07 km·h−1·m−½ in metric units, or 1.25 to 1.41 m·s−1·m−½ in SI units.
So in essence efficient cruising seed increases in proportion to the square root of the length of the vessel.
Long enough and no hydroplane is required!
