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
Design's 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.
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.
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
www.ghsport.com/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.
Copyright (C) 2011
Creative Systems, Inc.