Just how much exploration did the Enterprise-D do?

[sunnyside]

That's not how I read it. As far as I can tell, his argument is simply that the ships of the line were much bigger and heavier but had similar sail areas, and were therefore slower.

That's it. Speed is roughly determined by hull length, which a Frigate can match, sail plan, which can be roughly identical on a Frigate, sail area, which can be similar though lower on the Frigate, hull form, where the Frigate has the advantage with potentially much less beam, and tonnage where the frigate has a substantial advantage.

For what it's worth, wikipedia gives the speed of the Victory at 8-9 knots but the Constitution at 13 knots. You're welcome to find other information in case, I don't know, the Constitution's number was from some time it was running from a hurricane or is just wrong. While those numbers don't indicate speed to different points of wind, since they have nearly the same sail plan I'd expect the relative difference to be similar at all points.

[Mikey]

Sorry I misread your argument. I guess now I see your point, but I'm not sure I can agree. Simple weight or displacement doesn't affect nautical speed the same way that it would affect land speed... if you had two vessels of a given sail plan and hull form, but vessel "A" was 1.5x the displacement of "B" and had a round stern where "B" had a square stern, "A" would still pull out a slightly higher top end in the same weather.

I'm not sure I buy 13 knots for the Constitution, or for almost any three- or four-masted vessel for that matter. The fastest Age of Sail vessel of which I know was HMS Endymion, reported to pull 14 knots running at points, and she was a three-master with a fore, main, and snow-rigged mizzen.

[sunnyside]

Sorry I misread your argument. I guess now I see your point, but I'm not sure I can agree. Simple weight or displacement doesn't affect nautical speed the same way that it would affect land speed... if you had two vessels of a given sail plan and hull form, but vessel "A" was 1.5x the displacement of "B" and had a round stern where "B" had a square stern, "A" would still pull out a slightly higher top end in the same weather.

I'm not sure I buy 13 knots for the Constitution, or for almost any three- or four-masted vessel for that matter. The fastest Age of Sail vessel of which I know was HMS Endymion, reported to pull 14 knots running at points, and she was a three-master with a fore, main, and snow-rigged mizzen.

http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_displ ... d=100&ct=4 Puts it at 13+.

I do believe some Clipper ships were supposed to be able to sustain 19 knots.

At the very end of the age of sail, when they were able to "cheat" a bit with metal in the construction, you had Windjammers with four masts running 15+ commonly and 21 knots top.

[Mikey]

Those clippers didn't evolve until the mid-1800's, hardly contemporary with the vessels of which we were speaking.

[sunnyside]

Those clippers didn't evolve until the mid-1800's, hardly contemporary with the vessels of which we were speaking.

I just meant that 13 knots doesn't seem outlandish. Really I probably just muddied the water even bringing those up. I'm inclined to trust the Navy website on the top speed for the Constitution. And in any case you mentioned another Frigate that can go slightly faster.

So it's more the question of if the speed of First raters in general or Victory in particular is understated, or if it is in the 8-9 or worse sort of range. I'm not finding a lot, though I did find that the Spanish First rate Santísima Trinidad was given the nickname El Ponderoso by her crew for her poor sailing properties and it was suggest by some officers that she only be used defensively within a bay.

Actually with all those gundecks I wonder if First Rate ships were generally more vulnerable to capsizing in a storm compared to Frigates? With their deeper draft it seems they'd certianly be more vulnerable to running aground in uncharted waters or storms and I'd expect their weight would make that situation worse as well.

[Mikey]

Santisima Trinidad is a very odd example. She was designed with more guns than anyone had ever seen... then her hull was gerrymandered twice to hold more guns than she was initially rated for. By the end of 1802, that ship which was built for a rating of 112 guns had been cut and restitched to hold 140, including two extra gun decks (with one split apart in the middle because of how that gun deck was shoehorned into the hull.) Further, she had a slightly fluyt-shaped hull, giving her displacement capacity but diminishing speed.

As far as first-rate ships being more prone to capsizing... I doubt it. Deeper draft + more aggressive keel + greater rise = more stability, especially when all those guns are stowed on the properly-designed gun decks. They'd certainly be more vulnerable to running aground, which is why the generally carried some decent combination of gigs, jollyboats, longboats, whalers, a/o cutters.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

We really need a TR-116 macro or GIF or something for when the thread goes off-rails like this.

[sunnyside]

We really need a TR-116 macro or GIF or something for when the thread goes off-rails like this.

Santisima Trinidad is a very odd example. She was designed with more guns than anyone had ever seen... then her hull was gerrymandered twice to hold more guns than she was initially rated for. By the end of 1802, that ship which was built for a rating of 112 guns had been cut and restitched to hold 140, including two extra gun decks (with one split apart in the middle because of how that gun deck was shoehorned into the hull.) Further, she had a slightly fluyt-shaped hull, giving her displacement capacity but diminishing speed.

As far as first-rate ships being more prone to capsizing... I doubt it. Deeper draft + more aggressive keel + greater rise = more stability, especially when all those guns are stowed on the properly-designed gun decks. They'd certainly be more vulnerable to running aground, which is why the generally carried some decent combination of gigs, jollyboats, longboats, whalers, a/o cutters.

what do you mean by "rise", having weight further up is going to greatly decrease stability, so I'm guessing that's not what you meant.

In any case if we're ever going to get back on track, the point was that at the beginning of TNG the Galaxy class didn't just have the most guns, it had the most speed. It makes sense to use it to explore, though I kinda like my theory that their mission of exploration was mostly poking around the edges and lesser explored nooks within Federation space.

[Mikey]

No, "rise" referring to the angle of deflection of the stern-to-prow line from horizontal (simply put, in practice most boats had an arc rather than a straight line from stern to prow.) A very steep rise could potentially decrease stability, but a certain degree of rise helped cut a heavy swell.

[Tholian_Avenger]

So I got thinking about this topic recently when I read one of the Titan novels. Encounter at Farpoint has Picard saying that the Farpoint station is on the edge of explored space - I forget the exact line but it's something like "Past this point lies the great unexplored mass of the galaxy". And as Picard says at the end, "Let's see what's out there!" The indication seems to be that after Farpoint, they're due to head off into the great unknown.

So... here's a breakdown of the missions the Enterprise-D undertook in the ships first year

To me it seemed like:

The Enterprise was a newer ship, from a newer class, with a newer crew. Rather than risking the very big, very capable, and very fast Galaxy class in the unknown they sent the Enterprise to bring some order to the frontiers and to check up on the colonist missions that took place before and during TOS. The Enterprise seemed to meander between border flare ups with the Ferengi, Cardassians, Romulans, and Klingons. Aside: it seems like all of these groups have some kind of weird interlocking three dimensional mutual border.

[Captain Seafort]

The Enterprise seemed to meander between border flare ups with the Ferengi, Cardassians, Romulans, and Klingons. Aside: it seems like all of these groups have some kind of weird interlocking three dimensional mutual border.

I don't think it the border is too complicated. Given the nature of their society, I'm not sure if there is such a thing as Ferengi space beyond their homeworld, and while the Romulans have confirmed borders with both the Klingons and the Cardassians, I don't think there's a Klingon-Cardassian border. If there was, then why did the Klingons concentrate their forces at DS9, rather than in their own space which would have permitted shorter supply lines and much better operational security?

[Graham Kennedy]

The Enterprise was a newer ship, from a newer class, with a newer crew. Rather than risking the very big, very capable, and very fast Galaxy class in the unknown they sent the Enterprise to bring some order to the frontiers and to check up on the colonist missions that took place before and during TOS. The Enterprise seemed to meander between border flare ups with the Ferengi, Cardassians, Romulans, and Klingons. Aside: it seems like all of these groups have some kind of weird interlocking three dimensional mutual border.

But the point is that they planned to send the big capable Galaxy class off into the unknown. They didn't make a considered decision that this kind of ship should be at home - it was a failure of nerve.

[McAvoy]

The Enterprise seemed to meander between border flare ups with the Ferengi, Cardassians, Romulans, and Klingons. Aside: it seems like all of these groups have some kind of weird interlocking three dimensional mutual border.

I don't think it the border is too complicated. Given the nature of their society, I'm not sure if there is such a thing as Ferengi space beyond their homeworld, and while the Romulans have confirmed borders with both the Klingons and the Cardassians, I don't think there's a Klingon-Cardassian border. If there was, then why did the Klingons concentrate their forces at DS9, rather than in their own space which would have permitted shorter supply lines and much better operational security?

I think the Klingons and Cardassians do not share a border which is why they had to cut through Federation space.

Though I think there might be a neutral area near or around Bajor.

[Graham Kennedy]

Acording to the official "Star Trek: Star Charts" book, the basic layout is this.

So there is a Klingon-UFP border, a Romulan-UFP border, and a Romulan-Klingon border. But Cardassia is on the other side of the UFP from those borders, along with Tzenkethi and Ferengi space. Which is odd, as Dominion ships taking shortcuts through Romulan space was considered to be a problem during the Dominion war.

[Tholian_Avenger]

they planned to send the big capable Galaxy class off into the unknown. They didn't make a considered decision that this kind of ship should be at home - it was a failure of nerve.

Look at the incident in the episode The Neutral Zone though. The Romulans are a dangerous peer competitor, and apparently located very close to the major Federation homeworlds. Military outposts on both sides are being completely removed by the Borg, and each side's captains suspect the other. This was the first time in 53 years Starfleet had contact with the Romulans since the bloody Tomed Incident, and the Romulans are now operating at least one cloaked capital ship in Federation space. But Starfleet had an idea about the Borg for at least 10 years before this point.

Perhaps, Starfleet thought it might be the Borg, and/or fearing a gap in border defenses might spark a war sent one of its most capable starships. A Galaxy class has a fast response time, strong weapons, powerful sensors, vast computational ability, accoutrements for diplomacy, a good medical and epidemiological staff, and the ability to setup new outposts (I think they've done that in other episodes). I don't think that is a failure of nerve, but a reprioritizing, and a retasking.

You very well could be correct. I think the various border flareups, Borg incursions, Cardassian & Dominion War, and the debut of the Intrepid class validated the introspective mission of the Enterprise as a farsighted and judicious use of available resources.