History of GHS, The Origins of GHS In 1972, computers were expensive and shared by many users. A computer capable of running GHS might have cost millions of dollars; but you could share one, buying time on it that cost about $0.40 per CPU second. It was possible to develop software without spending a fortune: it required working things out on paper and spending very little real time on the computer. In this manner, a computer program called SCEND was being written by an engineer-turned-programmer, who was trying to start a business by combining his two major interests. SCEND was a product of the combined knowledge of computing and boat design. Its purpose was to automate the tedious hydrostatic calculations which were often done by hand in those days. It modeled hulls and tanks for the purpose of deriving stability and strength information. As a software product, it was a fresh start. It had no connection with SHCP or any of its other predecessors. Although it ran on a mainframe computer, it looked forward to interactive operation. It pioneered features like language- oriented input, macros, multiple-component parts and C.G. shifts in tanks. Selling Numbers Creative Systems began as a computing service where customers provided drawings and got back printouts of hydrostatic properties, cross curves, tank characteristics, etc. To help with input preparation, Garth Bedford began doing most of the model building -- carefully scaling offsets from drawings and recording them on punched cards. By the end of 1973, several naval architects in the Seattle area were using Creative Systems services on a regular basis. Still undergoing development, SCEND was benefiting greatly from the experience with those early customers -- especially Ed Monk, Jr., Larry Glosten and company, Gil Nilson with Ben Jensen, and Jacob Fisker-Andersen. The First Micro In 1974, the promise of the microcomputer revolution appeared on the horizon, and Creative Systems acquired some of the early, primitive machines. While it would be some time before they could replace the mainframe, one of them was programmed to serve as a remote terminal to the mainframe computer, allowing punched cards to be replaced by diskettes. The first useful program developed by Creative Systems for the micro was a Tank Soundings calculator -- ancestor of the present TS program. It was demonstrated at a B. F. Jensen open house where a terminal was set up so that guests could marvel at tank volumes and centers being calculated in real time and appearing on the screen before their eyes. Though SCEND was still being used on mainframe computers, the effort was now underway which would eventually lead to BHS (Basic HydroStatics) and GHS (General HydroStatics). With slow and limited hardware, it was not immediately practical to replace SCEND entirely. Though faster and cheaper computers were becoming available, it was also important to know, before investing in major software development, whether one of the competing hardware platforms would dominate the market. The answer to that question was, none of the present platforms; for it was answered by the announcement of the first IBM PC. BHS Version 1.0 Soon thereafter, Ted Drake, a Seattle naval architect, came with a hopper dredge design for which he needed a stability analysis with both mud and water in the hopper -- and he wanted to include the effects of spilling. Since SCEND was unable to model spilling, the decision was made to develop a program to do this on the new IBM PC. The result was the first version of BHS. The year was 1982. During 1983 and 1984, BHS matured to the point where it could duplicate most of the calculations produced by SCEND. But it still had no ability to help create the geometrical models. It relied on the hull and tank models developed with SCEND which had been converted to the BHS Geometry File format. In 1985, work was then begun on Part Maker and Section editor. Part Maker came on line in 1986, and Section Editor arrived soon thereafter, completing the essential modules of the GHS system. This was just in time to meet the demands of customers who were acquiring their own PCs and starting to experiment with the first version of AutoCAD. It was clear that they wanted to run their own stability calculations. That meant that the service work which had sustained Creative Systems would soon come to an end. Several copies of GHS were sold. Among the buyers were many of the old Seattle customers and some new ones from out of state. Some of these early GHS users were Jack Hargrave, Robert Vlies of Peterson Builders, and Bob Hill of John W. Gilbert Assoc. Bob Hill in particular contributed a great deal to the development of GHS through his ideas and encouragement. The AutoShip Connection As Creative Systems service customers became independent GHS users, it became necessary to look further for additional business. This need for an expanded market brought about an alliance with Grahame Shannon of Coast Design (later to become AutoShip Systems). Grahame was having good success selling the lines-development programs AutoYacht and AutoShip which were based on programs written by John Letcher of AeroHydro, Inc. A dealership contract was signed in late 1986 and Coast Design began selling GHS licenses along with AutoShip, and also a reduced BHS version called BHS/Yacht which was packaged with AutoYacht. This boosted the international sales of both AutoShip and GHS greatly; and, in order to secure this relationship, Coast Design began to seek a tighter identification with GHS. They began to call GHS AutoGHS. Through the urging of Mr. Shannon and his subsidiary dealer in Norway, Gunnar Solheim, a decision was made in 1987 to apply to the Norwegian Maritime Directorate for formal GHS approval. This entailed adding the graphing features to GHS which resulted in the Report Generator. After submitting extensive calculations of three test vessels, approval was granted for AutoGHS. By 1990, the sales of GHS had become quite strong, thanks, in part, to the marketing efforts of Coast Design. However, Creative Systems was being given little credit for GHS and its users were not getting the best possible support. With encouragement and consultation from Tom Bringloe of The Glosten Associates, plans were gradually developed for building Creative Systems into a larger organization. This eventually led to the decision to increase control over marketing which eventually resulted in the termination of Coast Designs dealership contract. By that time, Coast Design had already embarked on developing AutoHydro as their replacement for GHS. The rapid development of AutoHydro was made possible by an agreement with Creative Systems which gave Coast Design the right to use certain portions of the GHS source code -- but not to duplicate the look of GHS nor to use its documentation. Nevertheless, AutoHydro, including its documentation, turned out to look remarkably like GHS. Since 1992, many enhancements and improvements to GHS, as well as independent development of AutoHydro, have widened the gap between the two products. ABS Adopts GHS In 1989, Donald Liu, senior vice president of the Technical Services Group at ABS (American Bureau of Shipping) decided to take a close look at the commercial software available for ship stability on the PC. After a meeting at Creative Systems office in Seattle, he ordered a complete set of the GHS software. This began a relationship with ABS which continues to the present. ABS is now the largest single user of GHS, having copies installed in its offices worldwide. GHS Goes to Sea In order to help supply the growing market for shipboard stability and strength software, Creative Systems developed a menu system for GHS which adapted it to the needs of ship operators. The resulting product, called GLM (originally General Load Monitor, now GHS Load Monitor) was first installed on the F/V Island Enterprise in 1990. While the Island Enterprise was on her first trip with GLM aboard, a fax was received from Jeff Boddington, the skipper, describing how he was able to make an extra haul before the closure deadline since he was able to quickly check stability before commencing the operation. That one bag of fish paid for the GLM many times over. In 1994, Jack Kalro of the Military Sealift Command realized that it would reduce costs and improve performance to equip Sealift vessels with GLM. And so he began an effort to bring it about. At about the same time, Elias Garcia of RINAVE in Portugal set out to develop extensions of GLM using the GHS Programming Interface. Mr. Garcia also contributed the petroleum temperature expansion algorithms which are now an integral part of GHS. GLM has now been installed on hundreds of vessels. Growing Pains Acting on the plans to expand its organization, Creative Systems was incorporated in 1990 in Washington State and became Creative Systems, Inc. In 1991, the office was moved from Seattle to Port Townsend, Washington and additional employees were hired. The board of directors was increased to include Dave Udell and Tim Nolan. Emanuel Duarte and Jack Beaton were successively employed in sales (both having previously worked for Coast Design). John Gorrell was hired as office manager and Don Schmitt was employed to help with programming. Phil Reed came on board to handle customer support and training. Unfortunately, sales did not increase quickly enough and a deficit forced a cutback in the sales staff while Don Schmitt was lured away by Microsoft. Phil Reed continued until 1994 when he joined Pfitzco in Tampa, Florida. Phil continued to conduct occasional GHS training classes and eventually went on to work for Titan where he uses GHS in their salvage business. Since 1994, Glenn Bauer, a naval architect and professional engineer working in the same office with Creative Systems, has been doing service work and assisting with customer support. In 1997 Eric Rhodes joined the company as Office Manager and soon became proficient enough with GHS to handle most of the technical support as well. Eric moved to Ireland in 2003, leaving a vacancy which Mike Roth filled until 2007 when Julie Knott took over as Business Manager. Stephen Schumacher, hired in 1997, became chief programmer, half owner and vice president of the Corporation. Also in 2007, Stewart Carrington was hired to help with tech support as well as production, maintaining the in-house systems and various administrative tasks. Tech support is divided among Stew, Steve, Glenn and Bill according to the subject. The board grew to five members: added are Steve Schumacher and his father, Bob Schumacher. Vic Patton replaced Dave Udell who went on to be with his Lord. In 2010, Creative Systems moved into a new specially-designed office building in Port Townsend that was built on property purchased with revenues from GHS sales. The building project was managed by Julie Knott. That same year Vic Patton retired; Tom Andritsch joined the board of directors, and John Christian joined the company as the new business manager. John is a graduate of the USMMA - United States Merchant Marine Academy with undergraduate and graduate degrees in Computer Science, Management and Marine Transportation as well as extrensive experience and knowledge in the maritime field in commercial, exploration, international, naval, research and shipyard work; and brings a holistic coverage beyond naval architecture in dealing with client needs. In 2011, Lucas Hurt, NA, PE joined Creative Systems. Lucas came on board well-qualified with a decade of experience as naval architect. His GHS experience goes back to his college days at Webb Institute of Naval Architecture. His duties include technical support and training of GHS users. Early in 2012, Eric Rhodes, rejoined Creative Systems as technical support and facilities manager. With over 15 years experience using GHS, Eric, will be providing front-line support for GHS and GLM customers around the world. Successes at Salvage Because of its realistic approach to hydrostatics simulation, GHS has always been an excellent tool for salvage calculations. Phil Reed was interested in the salvage applications, even before joining Titan. As far back as 1993 he presented a SNAME paper demonstrating the application of the ground reaction method, pioneered by GHS, in the refloating of the M.V. Frota Humaita at Dunkirk, France. Ken Edgar of Marine Response Consultants is particularly partial to GHS for salvage work and continues to be a major proponent, sometimes lecturing on the advantages of the GHS approach and doing training for GHS users. GHS is often used in major salvage efforts. The Origin of IMSA In 1991, Design Systems and Services (later Proteus Engineering a division of Anteon Corporation), together with HydroComp and Creative Systems, laid the groundwork for the IMSA organization (International Marine Software Associates) as well as the IDF file format which was designed as a universal communication channel for the types of data involved in various marine software programs. Design Systems also became a dealer for GHS, enlisting Nick Danese to be its European representative under the name Design Systems Europe (now Design Systems and Technologies). DST has become the worldwide leader in international sales of GHS. The Sales Network In 1992, ABS became a worldwide GHS dealer, and Calvin Chai, under the leadership of Faith Lee, worked out a companion interface for GHS, which they distribute with GHS, calling the package ABSGHS. Proteus Engineering also used GHS in their FlagShip product which integrated several marine software programs. During the 1990s, additional GHS representatives were established, including RINAVE for Portugal, Delteq Systems for Singapore, Marcon Engineering for the Netherlands and Northern Europe, Nick Danese for Western and Eastern Europe, Barry Kingwill for South Africa, Alejandro Pita & Guillermo Fisch for Latin America and the Iberian Penninsula, Jim Leake for UAE and surrounding area, and Ravi Panth for India. Subsequently, in the early 2000s, Sea Quest Technology replaced Delteq in Singapore and Benny Alex of Oasis Ship Management took over when Jim Leake left the United Arab Emirates. Ichiro Ueno of Seals, Ltd became a dealer in Japan. Nick Danese gained most of Europe, Guillermo Fisch continues their dealership while Barry Kingwill focused on salvage operations. In 2008, Sea Tech Solutions became a dealership primarily focused on India while being located in both India and Singapore. Also in 2008, Singtong Marine and Offshore Pte Ltd became a dealership primarily focusing on China. The current list of dealers is at ghsport/DISTRIB.HTM GHS and GUIs With the popularity of the Windows Graphical User Interface (GUI), the increasing interest in a special version of GHS for the Windows environment led to a series of developments where GHS was eventually ported to a new Windows-based development system. This would have been a monumental task full of inherent risks to product integrity if it had not been for the extraordinary work of Steve Schumacher in developing an automatic translator for the GHS code. Meanwhile, in 1995, Bob Horsefield, a naval architect and computer programmer, brought out a product called Windows Manager for GHS under the company name Visual Systems Workshop. WMGHS worked alongside GHS and added some Windows-oriented functions during the years when GHS was not being compiled as a Windows application. Should a DOS-based version of GHS be needed, an automatic filter can produce one from the current GHS code. Continuing Growth Many GHS licenses have now been purchased by governmental, military and bureau organizations including the US Coast Guard and US Navy. The Canadian Coast Guard and Department of Defense have adopted GHS as their standard. GHS continues to be a popular and well-respected program. It is certainly a world leader in ship stability software. Most of the credit for the success of GHS goes to the users: Without the advice and gracious enthusiasm of our users, the work we do here would not be possible. Unlike most of the competition, Creative Systems has never received financial assistance for R & D or marketing; it is a 100% user-supported operation. See, ghsport
Posted on: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 17:14:10 +0000