Independent Practice Week3:Ship Research

During the design process i became aware of the problem that had occured in my previous project and so i went back and started to research into ships that i will base my space pirate ship off of. The reason i will base my space pirate ship design is from watching Treasure Planet as i liked the unique design that the ships took along with technology and the overall theme of pirates carries on into the ships design although it will be more of technological space ship. I researched through many ships, finding one which stood out to me as unique in the shape that it takes and once i went further into the research of the ship i found that this is the ship to base my designs off of. Going with the 14th-15th century ship, the Carrack, the reason being is that after researching further i found that the Carrack ships design depending on the design could hold between 40-80 crew members, large amounts of space for cargo and because of the stability could mount large cannons. The Carrack had specific features such as a rounded stern, the bow sprit rising from the front of the ship and three or four masted sails.

Another reason for choosing the Carrack had been from the most famous ship the Santa Maria, which Christopher Columbus had used in his first voyage to America in 1492. The reason for this had been because it was mentioned that the Carrack had been seen as difficult to navigate as the large forecastle catches the wind and gets pushed off course. Due to the navigation issues Columbus called the Santa Maria a 'Cow' and because of the maneuvering the Santa Maria sank. I found that basing my ship design off of the Carrack that because it was hard to maneuver i could use that to my advantage as my ship would be automated, from the space ship being automated i would have few crew members and the size would also play a part in how big the cargo would be and the weaponry room.

Having three or four masted sails would also be automated and going back to Treasure Planet i saw that the ship had been powered from solar energy, as the sails would open up to saok in the rays and would be stored in the ship. So i wanted to use the idea of solar sails for my space pirate ship and researched much more into the concept when i came across the first solar powered spacecraft, IKAROS (shown on the left) had been launched on July 9th 2010 and had collected radiation from the sun and was solar sailing through space. I will be using the concept of mirrors in the form of very tiny sheets to use the radiation from the sun to power my spacecraft which will use the sheets in the form of sails as the ships in Treasure Planet had done.

The next bit of research that i had done was the actual crash site looking into caves similar to what the setting of 'The Fountain of Youth' was for the Pirates of the Carribean. I looked at the formation of the rocks within the cave as well as the surrounding that form the overlaying interior of the cave to draw you into a focal point.

I looked at the greenery that could be used within as well as aroung the cave because i want to involve some aspect of water which would give the greenery life. From the research i found that the cave becomes very distinctive because of the amount light that is allowed to escape into the depths of the cave and show certain areas of the cave that have the tree roots and vines wrapped around the entrance and walls of the cave.

Another aspect of research that i had done was researching into spacecrafts that have already been designed and i found many unique designs which fit well into the space environment. Looking at spacecrafts for my project helped me to understand what a spacecraft has in the visual standpoint that makes it classed as a spacecraft other than being in space.






I looked at certain designs of the spaceship which benefit from the shape to, in someway be able to hide weaponry or engines from enemies. Engines, weaponry, texture and more fine bits of detail give spacecrafts their meaning. Many of the spacecrafts use very light colours, with few giving the shading of contrast the form of the colour for the spacecraft.